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THE 



POETICAL LITERATURE 



PAST HALF-CENTUEY 



PRINTED BY W. BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EniNBURGH. 



SKETCHES 



POETICAL LITERATURE 



PAST HALF-CENTUEY 



D. M. MOIE W 



THIRD EDITION 



WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 

EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
MDCCCLVI 



TK5 81 



C3AfL 

W. L. Shoemaker 
7 S '06 



PREFACE 



The Directors of the Edinburgh Philosophical 
Institution having resolved that their Lectures 
for the Session 1850-51 should be devoted to a 
review of the Social, Literary, and Scientific 
History of the Half-Century then just terminat- 
ing, the Author was requested to undertake the 
six which, by their Syllabus, were to be appro- 
priated to the Poetical Literature of the period. 
His first impression certainly was to decline the 
honour — ^for most assuredly he held it to be such, 
seeing the names with which his own was to 
be brought into conjunction — partly on private 
grounds, and more especially from a conviction 
of his inadequacy to do justice to the subject ; 
nor were his scruples for some time overcome by 
those on whose judgment he has been accustomed 
to place reliance. 



Vr PKEPACE. 

In addressing himself to his subject-matter, 
the first prominent difficulty was the disposal of 
materials so comprehensive into such sections as 
might enable him to bring the whole, as it were, 
in a bird's-eye view, within the prescribed limits ; 
thus giving at least something like a due share of 
consideration to each. The comparative import- 
ance of the long line of celebrated men who were 
to be submitted to critical remark, was the next 
source of perplexity ; nor was the delicacy or 
difficulty of this task lessened from the circum- 
stance of the Author having been honoured by 
the friendship of several of the illustrious departed, 
as well as of not a few of the illustrious living, 
whose works were necessarily to form the main 
themes of comment. 

The likelihood of accomplishing this, without 
occasioning disappointment or provoking displea- 
sure in some quarters, the Author soon felt com- 
pelled to make up his mind to, as an impossibility. 
But be this misfortune to whatever extent it may, 
he can unhesitatingly affirm, that in his critical 
judgments — which of course can go for no more 
than they are worth — ^he has approached his task 
solely and exclusively in a literary point of view ; 



PREFACE. 



and, in as far as he himself can judge, with that 
impartiality and candour with which he would 
have viewed it had the writers to be examined 
belonged to the era of Queen Elizabeth or of 
Queen Anne. That many of his critical conclu- 
sions may be erroneous, or founded on insufficient 
data, is very probable ; but that is quite another 
matter. Nor is he at all wedded to these — more 
especially as applicable to our more recent poets 
— in any degree incompatible with whatever 
change of opinion he may hereafter deem to be 
just and fair. 

With regard to the style and tone of the 
following pages, it may be as well to say, that 
they are scarcely such as their Author would 
have adopted had their contents been intended 
solely for the closet ; but were simply preferred 
as those most likely to conduce to effectiveness 
in delivery before a very large popular audience. 
Nor in this, so far, was he disappointed ; for the 
measure of their acceptance proved to be very 
much beyond his most sanguine expectations, and 
has indeed been a main reason for committing 
them to the press ; more especially as, from the 
limited time allowed for delivery, a considerable 



portion of eacli Lecture was necessarily omitted, 
as well as many of the extracts, which had been 
selected for illustrations and proofs of particular 
positions. 

To the mighty minds whose productions passed 
in review before him, the Author has ever been 
accustomed to look up with love and veneration 
— feelings which, however unceremoniously he 
may occasionally seem to have presumed to dis- 
cuss the merits of those productions, remain 
unabated and unchanged. As the temporary 
occupant of a critical chair, he hesitated not to 
speak out his opinions freely and fearlessly ; but 
he trusts without one iota of personal prejudice, 
or the slightest leaning towards asperity. In- 
deed this could not well be ; as not a single name 
has been adverted to, throughout, which did not 
suggest its claims to attention by some high or 
peculiar excellence. 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE I. 

Page 
State of Poetical Literature at the commencement of the present century, 
— The long mastery of the school of Dryden and Pope ultimately 
modified by Thomson, Goldsmith, Cowper, and Burns. — The tem- 
porary triumphs of Hayley, Darwin, and the Delia Cruscans. — 
Literary tastes influenced by social changes. — Matthew Gregory 
Lewis, and the supernatural school ; its characteristics and pecu- 
liarities. — Kirke White and James Grahame; specimens of the 
manner of the latter in Love of Country and The Covenanters. — The 
satirical and humorous poetry of Canning, Frei-e, Gififord, Mathias, 
and Geoige Colman the younger. — Sketches of Bloomfield and Ley- 
den. — Specimen from the first. The Blind Boy ,- from the second. 
Apostrophe to Aureliair—Yem&lei writers of the period : Charlotte 
Smith, Amelia Opie (specimen, Forget-me-Not), Mrs Hunter, Mrs 
Grant, and Mrs Tiglie. — Translators and Poets of the period less 
commonly known ; general estimate of their merits. — The Rev. 
George Crabbe ; his rise and progress ; his originality. — Specimens 
in Qipsy's Tent and Lyrical Tales. — Samuel Rogers and Lisle 
Bowles ; the high artistic excellencies of the former : examples of 
his manner. — Controversy regarding the invariable principles of 
poetry between Campbell, Bowles, and Byron, . . . 1 



LECTUEE 11. 

The origin, progress, and tenets of the Lake School. — S. T. Coleridge, 
Robert Southey, Lloyd and Lovell.— The Lyrical Ballads.— Willism 
Wordsworth as a reformer of our poetry ; his peculiar views ; his 
faults and excellencies : extract from Goody Blake and Harry Gill; 



CONTENTS. 

Page 
Elegiac Poems, Justin Martyr, Poems from Eastern Sources, The 
Suppliant.— T\xom3i& Pringle, John Clare, Bernard Barton, Thomas 
Haynes Bayley, Alaric A. "Watts.— Specimen , Cftt7d &Zot«n£r Bufebfes. 
— T. K. Hervey. — Rev. Charles "Wolfe. — The Squire's Few, by Jane 
Taylor. — Various other poets of the period, . . . 259 



LECTUEE VI. 

PART SECOND 

Ballad-historic poetrj'. — J. G. Lockhart : Spanish ballads : his Napoleon. 
— T. B. Macaulay ; Lays of Ancient Rome, Lake Regillus. — Profes- 
sor Aji»un ; Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, Battle of KilUecrankie. 
— Mrs Stuart Menteath, Mrs Ogil\"y, Miss Agnes Strickland. — Sir 
Edward Lytton Bulwer: his poems and translations. — Rev. John 
Moultrie; stanzas, "3/y Scottish Lassie," — Scottish and Irish 
poets of the period. — Dirge by Mrs Downing. — The Metaphysic- 
romantic school.— Alfred Tennyson ; Ballads, Princess, and In 
Memoriam.— Specimens, Oriana and Stanzas. — R. M. Milnes and 
Dr Charles Mackay. — Robert Browning ; Paracelsus, Sordello, Bells 
and Pomegranates. — John Sterling. — PhDip James Bailey ; Festus, 
The Angel "World : extract, Dream of Decay. — Mysticism and 
obscurity the pervading faults of our recent poetry. — Concluding 
remarks, ........ 297 



POETICAL LITEKATUEE 



PAST HALF-CENTUET 



LECTURE I. 



State of Poetical Literature at the commencement of the present century. — 
The long mastery of the school of Dryden and Pope ultimately modified by 
Thomson, Goldsmith, Cowper, and Burns.— The temporary triumphs of 
Hayley, Darwin, and the Delia Cruscans.— Literary tastes influenced by 
social changes. — Matthew Gregory Lewis, and the supernatural school ; its 
characteristics and peculiai-ities. — Kirke "White and James Grahame ; speci- 
mens of the manner of the latter in Love of Country and The Covenanters. — 
The satirical and humorous poetry of Canning, Frere, Gifford, Mathias, 
and George Colman the younger. — Sketches of Bloomfield and Leyden. — 
Specimen, from the first. The Blind Boy ; from the second, Apostrophe to 
Aurelia. — Female writers of the period: Charlotte Smith, Amelia Opie, 
(specimen, Forget-me-Not), Mrs Hunter, Mrs Grant, and Mrs Tighe. — 
Translators and Poets of the period less commonly known ; general esti- 
mate of their merits. — The Rev. George Crabbe : his rise and progress ; 
his originality.— Specimens in Gipsy's Tent and Lyrical Tales.— Samuel 
Rogers and Lisle Bowles ; the high artistic excellencies of the former. — 
Examples of his manner. — Controversy regarding the invariable principles 
of poetry between Campbell, Bowles, and Byron. 

Such was the mastery which the writings of Dryden 
and Pope had acquired over English literature, that 
their influence continued to be felt to the utmost limits 
of the last century : their sentiments and modes of 
thought seemed stereotyped ; and the music of their 
verse was that to which not only Churchill and Samuel 



NATIONAL MODES OF THOUGHT. 



Johnson, but Goldsmith and William Haylej, tuned 
their lyres. Many circumstances had, however, been 
latterly combining to bring about a revolution in public 
taste ; to stimulate to novelty ; to extend the circle of 
thinkers and readers ; and to irrigate and refresh the 
fields of literature. Scarcely had the American war 
terminated, when that lurid flame skirted the horizon, 
which was afterwards to blaze abroad in the raging 
hurricane of the French Revolution — when thrones 
were to be shaken, and faiths were to be convulsed, and 
old landmarks removed, and the very bonds which held 
society together stretched to the verge of utter rupture. 
The literature of an age is the reflection of its existing 
manners and modes of thought, etherealised and refined 
in the alembic of genius ; and the truth of this position 
will be evident, if we turn for the highest tone of the 
Greek mind to J^iSchylus and Euripides — for that of the 
Roman, to Virgil and Horace — for that of the Italian, 
to Dante and Ariosto — for that of the German, to Goethe 
and Schiller — for that of the Spanish, to Calderon and 
Cervantes — for that of the French, to Racine and 
Corneille — and for that of the English, to Shakespeare 
and Milton. It may also be admitted, that the intel- 
lectual character of an era must ever be, in a great 
measure, moulded and modified by cotemporaneous 
exigencies. In semi-barbarous ages, indeed, there have 
appeared, like gigantic apparitions, spirits that have 
grappled with and overcome stupendous diflaculties ; 
and yet have evidently been so far before their time 
that their rising might be considered merely heliacal, 
as, single and unaccompanied, they have irradiated the 
gloomy atmosphere to which their extinction seemed to 
lend an added darkness. Such was Alfred, the morning 
star of Saxon civilisation ; such was Roger Bacon, who 
paid the penalty for thinking more deeply than his 
cotemporaries could comprehend ; such was " The Starry 
Galileo with his woes ; " and such was Geoffrey Chaucer, 



INFLUENCE OF CIVILISATION. 3 

by more than two centuries the harbinger of that day 
which was to rejoice in the meridian sunlight of Shake- 
speare and Milton. 

Since the era of these Titanic spirits, it would appear, 
on a general survey, that we have been more anxiously 
employed in refining the materials to work upon, than 
in adding to our hereditary treasures. It may be argued, 
that circumstances are not now so advantageous for 
observation as they were of yore, when the mind of the 
nation was emerging from rudeness to refinement, — 
when manners retained their sharp angles, and etiquette 
had not amalgamated the various groups of society into 
one great concrete mass. One of the phases of civilisa- 
tion being concealment, — the teaching man how he may 
most dexterously and successfully hide his wants, and 
yet realise his wishes, — this suppression of the external 
working of the passions lends an artificial varnish to 
character ; through which it is more difficult to divine 
the springs of action, and to penetrate the motives by 
which individuals are governed. 

While the materials for verse, therefore, cannot well 
exist in abundance in the Cimmerian chaos of primal 
barbarism — for we cannot desecrate the name of poetry 
by applying it to what may be gleaned from the rude 
memorials of crime and cruelty and bloodshed, which 
brutalise the infant steps of society — scarcely more 
affluent will they be found in the zenith of that luxury 
which states and peoples generally attain immediately 
before their decline, and final overthrow and extinction. 
There is a middle space between light and darkness, a 
twilight with its receding stars and its rising sun, a 
table-land separating the confines of barbarism and 
refinement, which appears to be that best adapted for 
most things, — for intellectual exercise and enterprise, as 
well as for the development of the imaginative faculty ; 
for there the arabesque pageantry of night and the sha- 
dows of darkness have not yet disappeared, and the 



4 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 

dawn is fringing the orient clouds with gold. Pictu- 
resqueness is the attribute which renders this particular 
aspect of man the best adapted for representing him in 
a poetical light. His actions appear in it more impulsive 
and less involved ; and, from the alternations of light 
and shade, with a more aerial perspective, the world is 
in it rendered a fitter theatre alike for 

'•' The painter's pencil and the poet's pen." 

This was the very state of things existing at the 
commencement of the present century ; and with it a 
new grand epoch of the world's history was to begin. 
A band of giant intellects, as in the days of Elizabeth, 
was again to illumine the foot-hardened and cloud- 
shadowed pathways of literature and of science. Old 
feelings were to be set aside, old customs to be abrogated, 
old manners to pass into oblivion ; and out of bloodshed 
and confusion, and revolutions civil and religious, anew 
order of things was to arise, — gloomy, ghastly, deplor- 
able, and hopeless, according to some ; but, according to 
the sun-bright hopes of more ardent spirits, freighted 
with 

" a progeny of golden yeai-s, 



Permitted to descend and bless mankind." 

Far, as yet, have these Elysian dreams been from 
perfect fulfilment ; yet have we every reason to plume 
ourselves, when we regard what has been done for 
literature by Scott, by Wordsworth, by Byron, by 
Crabbe, by Coleridge, by "Wilson, by Campbell, by 
Southey, and their compeers ; and what science has 
achieved through "Watt, through Davy, through Her- 
schel, through Dalton, through Brewster, through 
Wheatstone, through Faraday, and others. By the 
steam-engine we have conquered alike the winds and 
the waters ; and, from their being the masters, have 
made them the slaves of man. The great phenomena 



CONCLUDED CYCLES OF LITERATURE. 5 

of nature, resulting from electricity and magnetism and 
galvanism, have now been nearly ascertained to have 
one common origin ; while, in the electric telegraph, 
space has been annihilated by the same wondrous 
agent ; which realises the line of Pope, by 

" Wafting a sigh from Indus to the Pole ; " 

and may, almost without metaphor, be said to be the 
fire which Prometheus is fabled to have stolen from 
heaven. When we consider, moreover, that all these 
things are as yet only in a state of infantine progression, 
we have reason to be proud, not only of our day and 
generation in its literary and scientific men, but of the 
ample modicum of germinating knowledge which that 
generation has contributed for the furtherance of the 
best interests of mankind throughout all future ages. 

To appreciate this, so far as literature is concerned — 
and with poetical literature we have now alone to do — 
we have only to take a rapid bird's-eye glance back- 
wards. Many circumstances, whether civil, religious, 
or both, contributed to make a marked separation 
between the age of Anne and that of Elizabeth. Spenser, 
Shakespeare, Milton, had been succeeded by Dryden, 
Cowley, and Pope ; while the dreary gulf between them 
had been almost wholly given up to civil broil, sectarian 
controversy, and fanatical persecution. A better order 
of things had at length been established. The veto 
which had been put on Fancy was removed, and 
Pegasus was permitted to capricole. The passionate 
energy of the national mind, which had been allowed 
to find exhibition and exercise only in the great drama 
of politics, now found vent in other channels ; talent 
shot forth its hydra heads in every department of the 
social field ; while genius, freed from the shackles of 
superstition and prejudice, owned no restraints but 
those legitimately imposed on it by morality and 
religion. 



6 CHANGE IN NATIONAL MANNERS. 

It is not to be denied that, with the departed order 
of things, some peculiarities worth preservation were 
necessarily swept away — as the American floods, while 
they hurry down debris and drift-wood, may also whirl 
away to the ocean particles of gold mixed up with their 
turbid waves. With the increase of national power and 
wealth perished much that contributed to the nutrition 
of its infant strength. The bold bluff freedom and 
heartiness of English manners, when — 

" 'Twas merry in the hall, 
When beards wagged all " — 

when every passing stranger had his seat at board, and 
every beggar had his dole, had been gradually subsiding 
into the technicalities of grade, the finicalness of address, 
and the formalities of polite decorum. Old customs, 
handed down from generation to generation, were 
allow^ed to fall into desuetude : Yule and Christmas 
were shorn of half their festivities ; and young ladies 
began to think the games of hunt-the-slipper, hot- 
cockles, blind-man's-buff, and snap-dragon, antiquated 
and vulgar. As with the pursuits, so with the person. 
The same change took place in dress and in manners, as 
in the habits of thought, and the contour of dialogue. 
Nature and warm-heartedness were being gradually 
superseded by art and luxury. We were becoming 
what the French were at the time, and what the Greeks 
and Romans had been before us — a polished nation. 
Cities increased, and arts and agriculture flourished, 
while year after year man was reduced more and more 
into a mere machine. The elements of romance were 
gradually and steadily, although imperceptibly, disap- 
pearing from the land, and the hills and valleys of 
Britain became a more flourishing but far less poetical 
region. 

In the first great era of our national literature — that 
of Spenser, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Taylor, 



ALEXANDER POPE. 7 

and Hooker, and Bacon, and Browne, each of whom 
may be regarded as the fountain of separate great rivers, 
whose branching waters were intellectually to fertilise 
the land — we discover that their materials were found 
in great first principles — in the grand and overboiling 
emotions of the heart — in the passions, whose display 
stamp character — in the heroic as to action, and the 
tender as to feeling. The materials of the second grand 
era — that of Dryden, Pope, and Swift — are admirably 
huddled together in the lines of Cowper : — 

" Roses for the cheeks, 
And lilies for the brows of faded age ; 
Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald ; 
Heaven, earth, and ocean, plundered of their sweets ; 
Nectareous essences, Olympian dews, 
Sermons, and city feasts, and favourite airs ; 
Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits ; 
And Katerfelto, with his hair on end 
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread." 

The great forte of Pope and his school lay in their 
acquaintance with, and skilful depicturing of, the 
fashions, follies, and frivolities of polished life, wherein 
art is made, in a great measure, to supersede nature in 
subject, style, and expression. His imagination never 
hurries him away on the pinions of inspiration, nor is 
the music of his verse like that of the old ballad — a simple 

" melody, 
That's sweetly played in tune." 

His taste keeps his fancy in check, and is continually 
pruning her wing. His versification loses occasionally 
its raciness, from being laboured into mellifluousness. 
He deals not with the great passions of the human 
heart — love, jealousy- hatred, remorse, despair ; he is 
all for parlour-window ethics, and the niceties of morale. 
His heroes are beaux, battered or unbattered ; his 
heroines are belles, of the same descriptions ; his levee 



8 AKENSIDE AND THOMSON. 

is made up of courtiers, generals, gamesters, artists, 
authors, and men about town. His females are madams 
and their maids — ladies dressed out in the pink of 
fashion, who dispose themselves in knots through the 
drawing-rooms, — 

" Some sipping scandal, and some sipping tea." 

From the windows of the house we have a glimpse of 
nature indeed ; but it consists of shaven lawns and 
clipped hedges, and diamonded parterres, beyond which 
are parks redolent of tame deer, artificial cascades, and 
Chinese bridges. Pope had, however, this — his own 
enchanted circle — 

" And in that circle none durst walk but he," 

save as an humble follower. He was among the most 
perfect of English writers, and will ever stand on one 
of the summits of the three-peaked hill, as the author 
of the " Essay on Man "—of the " Windsor Forest "—of 
the "Epistle of Abelard to Eloise"— of the "Elegy on 
an Unfortunate Lady" — and of "The Messiah" — and 
as the yet unsurpassed translator of Homer. Let no 
one imagine, therefore, that I have no relish for his 
beauties, simply because I think them of a less magni- 
ficent order than those of some of his great predecessors. 
Indeed, it would be as vain to look for another Alex- 
ander Pope as for another Edmund Spenser. 

The influence of this school — whose origin may be 
traced back to the poets and dramatists of the age of 
Charles the Second, which acquired stability from the 
transcendent powers of Dryden, and which was perfected 
by Pope — continued its mastery, as I have already 
remarked, until almost the commencement of the pre- 
sent century. A dawn of better things showed itself in 
Akenside and in Thomson, and expanded into the 
daylight with Cowper. To him we are to look as the 
great regenerator of our modern poetry, for his star 



WILLIAM COWrER. 9 

was towards its setting when that of Wordsworth arose. 
Throwing aside pedantic trammels and metrical sing- 
song, he dared, after his own fashion, to look upon and 
describe nature, as well as men and manners ; and he 
give to his pictures a freedom and a freshness which 
had been for centuries banished from poetical limnings. 
To walk abroad, even in the city, with Cowper in our 
heaits, is the next best thing to a walk in the country 
itself. All his sketches are full of truth and nature ; 
and nothing can surpass his winter scenery — his snow- 
covered valleys and frozen brooks, and leafless trees, and 
hungry birds picking on the highway. He deals not, 
like Thomson, so much in general description as in 
presenting to the mind's eye a series of features, the 
aggregate of which forms a perfect portrait. TVe delight 
in Thomson as an instructor, while we look up to him 
with something of reverence and awe ; but we sit down 
on the sofa with Cowper, and feel that we love him as 
a friend. 

It was not to be expected, however, that an innova- 
tion like that of Cowper in his " Task," was immediately 
to influence, and carry with it, the undivided suffrages 
of a generation which had so enthusiastically rejoiced 
in Darwin, Hayley, and Seward. He was content to 
divide the laurels with them, and even compliments 
were bandied between them ; while, in their hands, 
poetry continued to carry on a strange immigration 
into the regions of science. Steam-engines boiled in 
song ; and flowers wooed and won each other according 
to the most approved doctrines of their high -priest, 
Linnseus. Wedgwood was immortalised, together with 
all the patterns of his exquisite procelain ; and Lunardi 
ascended in his parachute to the music of heroic verse. 
In short, by a series of inverted rules applied to the art, 
whatever had been previously the favourite subjects for 
embellishment, from the days of Hesiod and Homer 
downwards, were utterly neglected ; that subjects, 



10 ROBERT BURNS. 

which had never been before supposed capable of 
poetical embellishment, might be attempted. Like all 
ingenious novelties, the system for a while attracted 
attention, and gained disciples, until it was carried to 
degrees either of monstrosity or silliness perfectly in- 
tolerable. The Laura Matildas, the Mrs Robinsons, and 
Bertie Greatheads, and Merrys, and TTestons, and Par- 
sons, and the rest of the Delia Cruscan school, the 
rough-knuckled GifFord demolished in a twinkling, and 
pilloried them in the " Maeviad and Baviad ; " while 
Hookham, Frere, and Canning, in the " Anti- Jacobin," 
did the same good turn to the poetical votaries of 
science, by " The Loves of the Triangles." 

Although the lights of Rogers, Bowles, Crabbe, Camp- 
bell, Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge, had already, 
at the close of last century, begun to irradiate the lite- 
rary hemisphere, we find that the stars then nearest 
the zenith were Darwin, Hayley, and Cowper — that of 
the last-mentioned being, as it deserved, strongly and 
steadily in the ascendant. A greater perhaps still 
— Robert Burns — had just untimeously set ; but the 
universality of fame which was thereafter for ever to 
attend that miracle of human nature, was as yet but 
slowly irradiating from a local centre : — 

" First the banks of Doon beheld it, 
Then his own land formed its span, 
Ere the wide world was its empire, 
And its home the heart of man." 

In Robert Burns, poetry showed itself no longer a 
weak nursling, like cresses reared on flannel floated on 
water, but a healthy plant springing from the soil, and 
redolent of its racy qualities. He wrote not from the 
mere itch of writing, but from the fulness of inspira- 
tion ; and coming from the heart, his poetry went to 
the heart. Much, therefore, as we owe to Cowper, yet 
probably more — although in a more indirect way — we 



•WILLIAM HAYLEY. 11 

owe to the author of "Tara O'Shanter," " Hallowe'en," 
^nd " The Cottar's Saturday Night ;" for, although suc- 
^ssors caught his manly tone, his manner and subjects 
mast have remained for a considerable period, to the 
English reader, matters of mere admiration and wonder. 
Burns threw himself unreservedly upon domestic life, 
and triumphantly showed that the morally sublime 
might be united to the extrinsically humble ; thus 
proving — long before Wordsworth's day — that human- 
ising sentiment could be extracted from the daisy be- 
neath his feet, as well as ennobling emotions from 

" The lingering star with lessening ray," 

that ushers in the light of the morn. "The fire,'' as James 
Montgomery has finely said, " which burns through his 
poems, was not elaborated, spark by spark, from mecha- 
nical friction in the closet. It was in the open field, 
under the cope of heaven, this poetical Franklin caught 
his lightnings from the cloud as it passed over him ; 
and he communicated them too by a touch, with elec- 
trical swiftness and effect." 

The popularity of Hayley in an age so artificial and 
so pragmatical as that wherein he flourished — an age 
of minuets, and hoops, and pomatum, and powdered 
queues, and purple-velvet doublets, and flesh-coloured 
silk stockings — is not much to be wondered at, when 
we consider the subjects on which he wrote, and the 
real graces of his style. Such poetry was relished, be- 
cause it was called forth by the exigencies, and adapted 
to the taste, of the particular time at which it was 
written. It was a reflection of existing modes and 
habits of thought ; and it must be allowed that his 
mastery over versification was of no common order. 
True it is, that his mawkish or overstrained sentiment 
might at times expose him to ridicule ; but the praise 
he received from Cowper is a strong proof of the influ- 
ence which his writings at that time exercised over 



12 ANNA SEWABD. 

society. That power and that popularity have now 
alike utterly passed away, for he was deficient in truth 
and nature ; his house was built on the sand ; and ex- 
cept the case of Churchill, it would be difficult to point 
out another whose reputation had assumed so much the 
aspect of a fixed star, and yet only proved " the comet 
of a season." 

Anna Seward, yclept the Swan of Litchfield, was the 
Sappho of that era of ribbons and guraflowers, and a 
fitting one for such a Juvenal as Hay ley, and such a 
Lucretius as Darwin. She wrote with fluency, and 
poured out a cataract of verse. Her elegies on Captain 
Cook and Major Andre, from the interest attached to 
the subjects, and the kind of electro-galvanic animation 
which characterised her compositions, attracted general 
attention, and ran successfully the round of popularity. 
With equal adaptation to the prevailing tastes, Paul 
Whitehead wore the laurel crown ; and, mounted on 
his spavined Pegasus, duly chanted his New Year and 
Birthday Odes, according to the terms of the statute. 

As nothing in reference to literature, except what is 
founded on truth and nature, can be expected to be 
permanent — and as Darwin, Hayley, and the Litchfield 
coterie were deficient in both — so their triumph was an 
evanescent one. It has been well said, that " the poetry 
of Darwin was as bright and transient as the plants and 
flowers that formed the subject of his verse." He had 
fancy, command of language, varied metaphor, and 
magniloquent versificatioA ; but the want of nature 
marred all ; and although his bow was bent occasion- 
ally with nervous strength, and always with artistic 
skill, yet his arrows fell pointless to the earth. He had 
no repose, no passion ; and consequently his poetry 
alike palled on the ear and failed to touch the heart. 
He had the power to astonish and to dazzle, but lacked 
that tenderness necessary to create sympathetic interest, 
and without which the other is but a tinkling cymbal. 



LAKE AND DARWINIAN SCHOOLS. 13 

In matter and in manner, the Lake and Darwinian 
schools of poetry are the very antipodes of each other — 
hostile in every doctrine, and opposed in every charac- 
teristic. The extreme radical error of the former con- 
sists in the debasing what is in itself essentially dignified 
and lofty, by meanness of style, triteness of simile, and 
puerility of description : it clothes Achilles once more 
in female habiliments, and sets Hercules to the distaff. 
The other endeavours (if I may be allowed the com- 
parison) to buoy up the materials of prose into the 
regions of poetry, by putting them into an air-balloon, 
not expanded by the divine afflatus, but by hydro- 
genous gas ; while the aeronaut, as he ascends, waves 
his embroidered flag, and scatters among the gaping 
crowds below gilded knick-knacks, tinsel-trinkets, and 
artificial flowers, amazingly like nature ! The one re- 
minds us of Cincinnatus throwing aside the ensigns of 
office, and withdrawing from the bustle of camps and 
cabinets to the tranquillity of his Sabine farm : the 
other to Abon Hassan in the Arabian Tales, transported 
from the tavern to the palace, when under the influence 
of a somniferous potion, and awaking amid the music 
of a morning concert, surrounded with the splendours of 
mock royalty. 

Were it not for the similes, which are, however, too 
frequently pressed into the service, " The Botanic Gar- 
den," and " The Temple of Nature," with all their 
luxuriant description, splendid imagery, and pompous 
versification, would be the most tedious and uninterest- 
ing performances imaginable ; " altogether flat, stale, 
and unprofitable." The subject-matter, abstractedly 
considered, wholly precludes pathos and sympathy — 
elements without which, in our critical opinion, poetry 
is a mere caput mortuum, and stripped of all fascination. 
We can easily conceive how Lucretius could construct 
a grand poem, " De Rerum Natura," and how the genius 
of Virgil could be suitably employed on " The Georgics ;" 



14 "the botanic garden." 

— rural sights and sounds continuing to exert thos e 
imaginative infiiuences in the days of Thomson, Cowper, 
and Grahame, which they did in the patriarchal ages, 
alike when Isaac went forth to meditate at eventide, 
and when Ruth gleaned in the fields of Boaz ; and 
which they will never, can never cease to exert, 
while human nature preserves its present constitution. 
Almost any subject may be invested with a poetical 
interest, although that interest is not prominently in- 
herent in the thing itself, nor even in the associations 
immediately connecting themselves with it. Garth's 
" Dispensary," and Armstrong's " Art of Preserving 
Health," for instance, as well as the " Eclogues of 
Sannizarius" and " The Nurse of Tansillo," are essen- 
tially and intrinsically prosaic. That these writers 
have sprinkled a poetical garnish over them, alters not 
the case. Darwin had no faith in simplicity and nature ; 
and he spoiled all his delineations " by gilding refined 
gold, and painting the lily ;" while the faults and 
failures of Wordsworth and his followers, on the other 
hand, originated in equally vain attempts, either to 
dignify the intrinsically mean, or to decorate the hope- 
lessly worthless. 

For utilitarianism, as strictly applied to poetry, I have 
no liking. What possible end could be gained by 
describing the machinery of a cotton-mill, or the im- 
provements on the steam-engine, in verse, that could 
not be better attained in prose ? If Dr Darwin intended 
to excite pleasurable feelings in his readers, he might 
have unquestionably chosen a more appropriate subject ; 
if instruction was his aim, verse ought not to have been 
his vehicle. We are told, indeed, that it is the design 
of " The Botanic Garden" " to enlist imagination under 
the banners of science, and to lead her votaries from the 
looser analogies that dress out the imagery of poetry, to 
the stricter ones which form the ratiocinations of philo- 
sophy." But the great end of poetry is here forgotten. 



ovid's metamorphoses. 15 

We look on, and are dazzled ; but we have none of those 
emotions which either " entrance the soul and lap it in 
Elysium ;" or that awaken " thoughts that do often lie 
too deep for tears." " The Loves of the Plants" are 
wholly different from " The Metamorphoses" of Ovid ; 
because, in the latter, the transmutation is merely a 
secondary object, both in the eyes of the poet and in 
the estimation of the reader. As the hero or heroine 
falls off from all intellectual grandeur, and thereby 
ceases utterly to excite aught of moral sympathy, we 
are wholly indifferent, since the absurdity of transfor- 
mation must take place, into w^hat it may be — an ani- 
mal, or a stone, or a flower. Swift and Prior have 
admirably travestied some of these stories ; and in the 
" Baucis and Philemon," the former has with great 
naivete adapted the classic fable to rural English man- 
ners, and turned his hospitable domestic pair into yew 
trees, which long remained objects of wonder : — 

" Till once a Parson of our town, 
To mend his barn, cut Baucis down ; 
At which 'tis hard to be believed 
How much the other tree was grieved, 
Grew scrubby, died a-top, was stunted ; 
So the next Parson stubbed and brunt it." 

Ovid, indeed, tells us that, when Ajax stabbed himself, 
his blood was turned into the violet. But this is only 
the supernatural winding up of a scene of human pas- 
sion, full of nature, feeling, and heroic action. He has 
previously introduced us to the two great leaders who 
plead their claims before the assembled Grecian chiefs 
for the armour of Achilles. We are taught to listen to 
the applausive shouts of the soldiery, and to have our 
hearts touched with the eloquence of the champions, as 
either in turn recounts the services he has rendered to 
his country, and '•' his hair-breadth 'scapes by flood and 



16 dakwin's similes. 

field." Of Darwin in his purest form take the following 
short specimen : — 

" Nymphs ! you disjoin, unite, condense, expand. 
And give new wonders to the Chemist's hand ; 
On tepid clouds of rising steam aspire, q 

And fix in sulphur all its solid fire ; 
With boundless string elastic airs unfold, 
Or fill the fine vacuities of gold ; 
With sudden flash vitrescent sparks reveal. 
By fierce collision from the flint and steel ; 
Or mark with shining letters Kunkel's name 
In the pale Phospor's self-consuming flame. 
So the chaste heart of some enchanted maid 
Shines with insidious light by love betrayed. 
Round her pale bosom plays the young desire, 
And slow she wastes with self-consuming fire." 

Here is science united to poetry with a vengeance ! 
Now, we maintain that the passage has no title what- 
ever to the latter appellation, save for the simile so 
strangely conveyed in the last four lines, which carries 
us back from dry art to images of natural beauty. 

The parts of Darwin's writings worthy of admiration 
(and the finer portions are well worthy of it) are, with- 
out an exception that strikes me, only those passages 
which are subsidiary to the main objects of his poetry, 
and introduced by way of apostrophe or illustration. 
We do not think of the Digitalis 'purpurea, but of phi- 
lanthropy and Howard ; we do not think of the embryo 
seeds, but of Herschel and the starry firmament ; not of 
the Carline thistle, but of the ascent of Montgolfier ; not 
of the Orchis, but of Eliza and the battle of Minden ; not 
of the vegetable poisons, but of the desolation of Palmyra. 
Incongruity, instead of being disclaimed by, seems a 
favourite axiom of Darwin and his school — subjects 
hopelessly prosaic being artificially stilted into eminence, 
and loaded with epithet and embellishment. If a beggar 
were to be introduced, it would be in a tattered lace- 



THE SUPERNATURAL SCHOOL. 17 

coat, and he would ride to the lower regions — down the 
^'facilis descensus Averni^' — on a broken-kneed horse; 
and, if a " slaughterer of horned cattle," he would, after 
stalking through the shambles like a dancing-master, 
apostrophise his slain bullock in the fashion of Mark 
Anthony over Ca3sar. As, with persons technically 
termed ^ne singers, sense is sacrificed to sound, so there is 
with the Darwinians no solicitude about the sentiment, 
provided you have the tones ; and intrinsic beauty is 
unhesitatingly buried beneath the gorgeous glitter of 
external drapery. When a Grecian matron is brought 
before you, instead of the robes of snowy white and the 
elegance of simplicity, you have her cheeks bedaubed 
with rouge, her ringlets filleted with embroidered ribbon, 
a tinselled cincture about her waist, and a scarf of purple 
thrown over her shoulders. In fact, you are invited to 
a mere scenic exhibition — a panorama of picturesque and 
fanciful objects — where you have the soft and the rug- 
ged, the Bay of Naples and Loch Lomond by moonlight, 
alternating with the Devil's Bridge and the whirlpool 
of Corryvreckan. It is never thus with the really great 
poet. In him, fancy and feeling are found combined ; 
and, although all the varieties of actual life, and all — 

" The outward shows of sky and earth, 
Of hill and valley he has viewed, 
Yet impulses of deeper birth 
Have come to him in solitude." 

He looks, indeed, on the beauties of the external world, 
on all the aspects of nature, with a gifted and a glad- 
dened eye ; but this does not prevent him from making 
the springs of action, the secrets of the inner man, all 
that elevates or depresses the human heart, " the haunt 
and the main region of his song." 

To the artistic artificial school of Darwin, Seward, 
Hayley, and the Delia Cruscans, may be said to have 
succeeded the purely romantic one — of which Matthew 

B 



18 ANN RADCLIFFE. 

Gregory Lewis ought to be set down as the leader, and 
John Leyden, Walter Scott, Coleridge, Southey, James 
Hogg, Mrs Radeliffe, Anna Maria Porter, and Anne 
Bannerman, as the chief disciples. The germ of their 
tenets must be traced back to the North, rather than 
to the ballads and romances of Percy, Ritson, and 
Ellis ; and their demonology throughout savours 
much more of the Teutonic than either the Saxon or 
Celtic. The unsettling of men's minds by the writings 
of Voltaire and Rousseau, among the French — and the 
new order of things created by the dangerous philoso- 
phising of the Academicians, and by Kant, Schelling, 
and the German transcendentalists — combined to bring 
about a new era, in w^hich were rekindled all the magical 
and mystic reminiscences of the dark ages. Horace Wal- 
pole had written his " Castle of Otranto " merely as a 
burlesque ; but, hitting the tone of the day, it had been 
read and relished as an admirable transcript of feudal 
times and Gothic manners ; and his success taught Mrs 
Radeliffe and others to harp — and far from unpleasantly 
— on the same string. " Clarissa Harlo we" and "Pa- 
mela," quietly located on the book-shelves, had for a 
while their " virtue unrewarded," even by a reading ; 
and nothing went down but "Udolphos" and " Ro- 
mances of the Forest," " Sicilian Bravos," and " Legends 
of the Hartz Mountains ;" corridors and daggers, moon- 
light and murdering, ruined castles and sheeted spectres, 
gauntleted knights and imprisoned damsels. 

Three men of peculiar, two of them, indeed, of great 
imaginative strength, at this time started up — Godwin, 
Coleridge, and Lewis ; but it is with the last of them 
only that I have at present to do. As a man of truly 
original powers, M. G. Lewis was far behind either 
Godwin or Coleridge, and stood much on the level of 
his successor Maturin ; but what his imagination lacked 
in grandeur was made up by energy : he was a high- 
priest of the intense school. Monstrous and absurd in 



M. G. LEWIS. 19 

many things, as were the writings of Lewis, no one 
could say that they were deficient in interest. Truth 
and nature, to be sure, he held utterly at arm's-length ; 
but, instead, he had a life-in-death vigour, a spasmodic 
energy, which answered well for all purposes of aston- 
ishment. He wrote of demons, ghouls, ghosts, vampires, 
and disembodied spirits of every kind, as if they were 
the common machinery of society. A skeleton " in com- 
plete steel," or the spectre of " a bleeding nun, " was 
ever at hand, on emergencies ; and wood-demons, fire- 
kings, and water-sprites, gave a fillip to the external 
scenery. His "Monk," that strange and extramundane 
production, made the reader "sup so full of horrors," 
that mothers were obliged to lock it up from their 
sickly and sentimental daughters — more especially as 
its morale was not of the choicest ; and when Lewis 
took a leap from the closet to the stage, his power was 
equally felt. I yet remember, when a boy, trembling 
in the very theatre, at the scene in "The Castle Spectre" 
which brings the murdered maiden on the stage ; and 
if productions are to be judged by their effect, that 
drama, like "The Robbers" of Schiller, has left on 
facile imaginations traces never to be obliterated. The 
"Tales of Wonder," and the "Tales of Terror," suc- 
ceeded ; some of them stories of amazing vigour — wild, 
extravagant, unnatural — but withal highly readable, 
nay, occasionally of enchaining interest. In spirit 
Lewis was a thorough convert to the raw-head-and- 
bloody-bones and the trap-door German school ; and 
his thoughts were ever away amid the Hartz Moun- 
tains, seeing " more spirits than vast hell could hold." 
His every night was Hallowe'en, or a Walpurgis Night ; 
and he is said to have become, in his latter years, the 
dupe of his own early over-excited feelings, and as 
sincere a convert to a frequent infringement of the 
established laws of physics, as Mrs Crowe in her "Night 
Side of Nature," or the Baron von Reichenbach himself, 



20 lewis's coadjutors. 

with his Odylic light. He conjured up ghosts to affright 
others, and came to he haunted by them himself — a 
most natural retribution. 

Most of the writers of the " Tales of "Wonder " were 
young men of enthusiastic temperament, panting for 
distinction ; and in their contributions they gave yivid 
indications of what, in maturer years, was to accom- 
plish greater and better things. Lewis himself had an 
exquisite ear for Yersification, as demonstrated in his 
" Durandarte, " and "Alonzo the Brave" — of which 
latter, "The Fire-King" of Smith, in " The Rejected 
Addresses," was a legitimate and scarcely extravagant 
burlesque. In " The Eve of St John, " and " Gleufinlas," 
Walter Scott exhibited the glorious dawn of that day, 
whose transcendent meridian was to irradiate the world 
in " The Lay of the Last Minstrel," in " Marmion," and 
in " The Lady of the Lake." Leyden poured out his 
whole rough strength in "Lord Soulis, " and the 
" Mermaid of Corryvreckan. " Southey forestalled his 
" Madoc " and " Roderick " in " Mary, the Maid of the 
Inn," "Donica," " Rudiger," "The Old Woman of 
Berkeley," and " Lord William " — the last thoroughly 
exquisite. While, although published elsewhere, Cole- 
ridge displayed wild and wondrous fruits from the same 
Hesperides in *'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," 
the "Tale of the Dark Ladie," "Christabel,"and"Kubla 
Khan." 

I repeat, however, that Lewis was a man rather of 
enthusiastic temperament than of high and sustained 
imagination. He could not face the sunlight and the 
clear blue sky ; he required clouds and tempest, a 
howling wind and a troubled sea. He was what the 
vulture is to the eagle, what the leopard is to the lion, 
what the scene painter is to the artist. His plays are 
what melodramas are to tragedy ; and the terrors of 
his poetry trench as much on the burlesque as on the 
sublime ; yet so great were the effects he produced, more 



HIS SPIRIT-WORLD. 21 

especially in his prose romances, and so unbounded was 
their popularity, that the mighty minstrel, then a young 
man, confessed to have looked up to him with an admi- 
ration bordering on awe, and even deferentially sub- 
mitted to be schooled by him in the art of versification. 
Like the school of Darwin, that of Lewis was des- 
tined to have a day fully as remarkable for its brevity 
as its brightness. The readers of " The Feudal Tyrants," 
"The Monk," "The Tales of Terror," "The Isle of 
Devils," and "The Castle Spectre," became surfeited 
with perpetually dining on high-spiced curries, and 
began to long for a little "plain potato and salt." His 
spirit-world was neither the spirit-world of Milton 
in his " Paradise Lost" and his " Comus ; " nor of 
Shakespeare in his "Hamlet" and "Macbeth;" nor 
of Spenser in his "Faery Queen." It was not the 
spirit-world of the Greek drama, which ^schylus and 
Euripides never ventured into, save in search of an 
avenging Nemesis, worthy of some awful occasion — 
transcendent misery, or transcendent guilt. On the 
contrary, the exceptions, with Lewis, were all on the 
other side, and were made the rule. Every one is 
bamboozled about the nature of everything he either 
hears or sees. What we take for a knight may be the 
foul fiend in incognito. Every third house is haunted ; 
every second old woman is a witch ; each tree has an 
owl ; the moon is in conspiracy with the stars to blight 
the earth, on which they shed a malign influence ; and 
thunder is ever at hand, with copious streams of blue 
zigzag lightning. The noises on the wind are the 
howling of spirits ; the skeleton of a murderer dangles 
in chains at every cross-road ; very many chambers 
are particularly dark, grotesquely wainscotted, have 
secret doors, and are disturbed by the death-tick ; 
while all the ponderous nail-studded gates hideously 
creak on their rusty hinges. In short, man, instead of 
being a prosaic payer of poor-rates and property-tax, is 



22 HIS FOLLOWERS. 

made to inhabit a land of enchantments ; where ogres 
tyrannise in castles, and dragons spout fire in caves; 
and where all the accredited Aristotelian elements — 
fire, air, earth, and water — are continually reverber- 
ating to each other — 

" Black spirits and white. 

Blue spirits and grey — 
Mingle, mingle, mingle, 

Ye that mingle may ! " 

Thehideousness, the monstrosity, the exaggeration of 
this style of writing, combining and amalgamating 
with the perturbed temper of the times, gave it an ac- 
ceptability and a fascination which it probably would 
not have otherwise acquired. At its acme it caught 
hold also of our most powerful cotemporary prose, in 
the " St Leon " of Godwin ; it was reflected in the 
" Canterbury Tales " of Sophia and Harriet Lee, in the 
"Frankenstein" of Mrs Shelley, and the "Melmoth" 
of Maturin, and died away into a gentler and more 
graceful spirituality in the " Rip Yan TVinkle " and 
"Headless Hessian" of "Washington Irving, the "Van- 
derdecken's Message Home" of John Howison, and 
"The Metempsychosis" of Robert Macnish. As the 
sacrifices of the high-priest ceased to ascend, the wor- 
shippers gradually deserted the mouldy shrine ; the 
younger devotees — Scott, Southey, Coleridge, and Ley- 
den — took, in the maturity of intellect, to higher and 
more legitimate courses — forsook the melodrama for 
veritable tragedy and comedy, and, doffing the mas- 
quer's robes, endeavoured " to look melancholy like 
gentlemen." To accelerate their flight from this de- 
batable land the bow of ridi<?ule was also bent against 
them. Jeffrey let fly a few sharp arrows ; and the 
""Water Fiends" of George Colman the younger, as 
well as the burlesques of Horace Smith, will long be 
remembered as exquisite pleasantries. 



I 



HENKY KIRKE WHITE. 23 

From Monk Lewis and his coterie we pass, by con- 
trast — for strict chronological accuracy in this outlinear 
sketch is nearly impracticable — to the poetry of Kirke 
White, which appeared in 1803,' and to " The Sabbath " 
of James Grahame, which was published anonymously 
in 1804. 

I am very willing to admit that something of the 
interest attachable to the name of Kirke White may be 
traced to the entrancing piece of biography prefixed to 
his "Remains" by Southey; but, assuredly, not all. 
During late years an attempt has been made to under- 
rate the young poet, apparently from the feeling that 
he had received more than his due modicum of praise. 
This is, in my opinion, alike ungenerous and unjust ; 
and it is a depreciation in which I cannot conscien- 
tiously concur ; for, depend upon it, the poetry which 
has commanded the sympathies of a very large circle of 
readers through half a century cannot be destitute of 
some rare merit. No such permanent temple of fame, 
as that which Kirke White has reared, was ever built 
on sand. He possessed the poetical temperament in a 
higher measure than any other English poet who has 
immaturely died, except Chatterton, Keats, and, per- 
haps, Michael Bruce ; and, from utter juvenility, so 
steady was his upward progress towards excellence, 
that, when we turn from " Clifton Grove," to the frag- 
mentary " Cbristiad," it is impossible to predicate what 
achievement could have been beyond his maturer grasp. 
His verses "To an Early Primrose" would not have 
disgraced Collins ; and his lyric on the " Herb Rose- 
mary" has a melody and melancholy flow peculiarly 
his own. Most of his compositions, it must be con- 
fessed, were almost necessarily unequal or imperfect ; 
but they are seldom poor, either in conception, lan- 
guage, or imagery. On the contrary, his imagination 
not seldom approaches the great, as in his " Shipwrecked 
Solitary's Song to the Night ; " in several passages of 



24 JAMES GRAHAME. 

his unfinished poem, entitled " Time ; " in his " Thana- 
tos " and " Athanatos ;" and his " Churchyard Song of 
the Consumptives." It is curious that so much of his 
verse should have been devoted to the scenery and 
sounds of night ; and from this circumstance it derives 
much of its characteristic melancholy, solemnity, and 
wildness. To say that his versification is correct and 
fluent, and that he had pleasing powers of fancy and 
description, is saying what is true, but by no means 
saying enough. Added to these qualifications, he ex- 
hibited at least the blossoms of far higher endowments, 
which could scarcely have failed maturing into cor- 
respondent fruit. Many detached passages could be 
pointed out, which indicate that the torch of his inspi- 
ration was certainly kindled at the inner shrine ; but it 
was darkly destined that his fair dawn was to have no 
meridian ; and with a heart full of youthful promise, 
and of lofty aspirations — devoted to the noblest and 
purest objects of humanity — he died while his feet 
were yet on the threshold of manhood. Three, at least, 
of the great magnates of literature lamented his fate, 
and were loud in his praises. On examining his post- 
humous papers, Coleridge and Southey alike expressed 
their astonishment at so much genius united to so much 
industry ; and Byron, in a truculent satire, wherein 
almost nobody was spared, truth-stricken, suspended 
the lash, to scatter flowers liberally on his early grave. 

The career of James Grahame differed in many things 
from this ; but it was almost equally striking. In the 
leisure allowed by his law studies, silently and secretly, 
and with the nervous and not unnecessary dread of evil 
consequences to the future prospects of his young family 
— being already a married man — Grahame penned '' The 
Sabbath." Even his publishers knew not the author 
whose manuscript had been submitted to them. It was 
strictly anonymous ; and although for several months 
it attracted little notice, the poem ultimately attained 



HIS BLANK VERSE. 25 

a wide and well-deserved popularity. I have seen 
(through the kindness of my friend, Mr David Lalng) 
the first edition of Grahame's celebrated poem, which is 
a thin duodecimo of ninety-six pages, and wants several 
of it« now most prominent and characteristic features — 
as the accounts of the English baptismal service, and 
the Sunday in the prison hall — of the culprit under 
sentence of death — and of the emigrant's singing "by 
Babel's Streams," " amid Columbia's Wildernesses vast." 
The invocations to War, and to the Spirit of Tell — the 
passages relating to Wallace, Bruce, and Douglas — and 
the apostrophes to Health and to Music, towards the 
termination of the poem, are all, also, among the subse- 
quent additions. 

The subject of Grahame's poem, and the manner in 
which he treated it, commanded the sympathies and 
went directly to the heart of the Scottish nation. 
Among its finest passages are its opening picture, de- 
scriptive of the "hallowed stillness of the Sabbath 
morn ; " the account of the Covenanter's Sabbath in 
the troubled times of old, when — 

" The lyart veteran heard the word of God 
By Cameron thundered, or by Renwick poured 
In gentle stream ; " 

the reveries of the heart-broken man meditating suicide 
far in moors remote ; the sketch of the Debtor in prison, 
as — 

"even there 
The Sabbath sheds a beam of bliss, though faint ; 

the blossoming pea 

That climbs the rust-worn bars seems fresher tinged ; 
And on the little turf, this day renewed. 
The lark, his piison-mate, quivers the wing 
With more than wonted joy ; " 

and of the shipwrecked mariner — 



26 CHARACTER OF GRAHAME'S GEXIUS. 

" Cast on some desert island of the main 
Immense, which stretches from the Cochin shore 
To Acapulco." 

The blank verse of Grahame has some resemblance in 
structure to that of Cowper and of Wordsworth ; but, 
as an artist, he was much inferior to and wants the 
correctness of either. Whether this arose from defi- 
ciency of ear — which could not well be, as he is said 
to have sung the ballads and songs of our native land 
mellifluously, and with a touching tenderness — or from 
some preconceived conviction of its effect in preventing 
monotony, we have ever, here and there, a line that 
halts, or that grates prosaically on the ear, like an 
instrument out of tune. His pages are never lighted 
up with wit or humour ; and it has been objected to 
him, that he is too uniformly tender or solemn. It was 
for this that Lord Byron, in the wantonness of youthful 
satire, dubbed him " the Sepulchral Grahame ; " but 
the epithet was truthless, and fell into oblivion. Indeed, 
nothing could be more unmerited, and it came with a 
peculiarly ill grace from the author of " Verses on a 
Skull made into a Drinking Cup," and the misanthro- 
pical " Epitaph on a Newfoundland Dog." The genius 
of Grahame, as exhibited in "The Sabbath" — the 
first and best of his productions — in " The Sabbath 
Walks," in the "Biblical Pictures," in "The Rural 
Calendar," in "The Birds of Scotland," and in "The 
British Georgics," is, on the contrary, characterised by 
that cheerfulness which seeks and sees beauty in all 
the aspects of creation, and finds delight in whatever is 
high, "holy, pure, and of good report." This must be 
felt by every one capable of dissociating fanaticism from 
true religion ; and of believing that Christianity and 
gloom, instead of being synonymous terms, are utterly 
irreconcilable and separated. That Grahame not only 
perceived, but deplored errors in the moral world, and 
in many of the usages of societv, and that he indignantlv 



ITS NATIONALITY. 27 

and pathetically inveighed against them, is true. No 
poet was in his nature more simple or sincere ; and his 
conscientiousness seemed relieved by his uttering his 
protest, alike against public and private vices. He was 
the more prompted to this, by the contrast he could 
not help instituting between the moral and the material 
worlds. From "the crimson spots i' the bottom of a 
cowslip," up to the Pleiades that glow "like fire-flies in 
a silver braid," everywhere around and above him, he 
could trace the finger of Deity ; and Creation was to 
him but one vast temple, in which, day and night, 
hymns of adoration and praise were being continually 
offered up. 

That views of life and nature so sincere, so just, and 
so accordant with the divine spirit of Christianity, 
should have found for the writings of Grahame many 
admirers, is not to be wondered at. His popularity, 
however, must, for many reasons, be in a great measure 
confined to the country of his birth — for he was as 
strictly a national poet as Robert Burns ; his pictures 
of life and manners, his landscapes, his thoughts, habits, 
and peculiarities — nay, even his prejudices, are all 
Scottish. Although most of his after-life was spent in 
a more southern region, he could not forget his native 
land ; and she must not forget one who could thus 
express himself regarding her — 

" And must I leave, 
Dear land, thy bi'oomy braes, thy dales, 
Each haunted by its wizard stream, o'erhung 
With all the varied charms of bush and tree ; 
And must I leave the friends of youthful years, 
And mould my heart anew, to take the stamp 
Of foreign friendships in a foreign land, 
And learn to love the music of strange tongues ? 
Yes ! I may love the music of strange tongues, 
And mould my heart anew, to take the stamp 
Of foreign friendships in a foreign land ; 



28 "birds of Scotland" — "British georgics." 

But to my parched moutli's-roof cleave this tongue, 

My fancy fade into the yellow leaf, 

And this oft-pausing heart forget to throb, 

If, Scotland ! thee and thine it e'er forget." 

Passing over an anonymous juvenile poem, which he 
afterwards repudiated, but which is strongly marked 
with his peculiar beauties and defects, the earliest 
earnest composition of Grahame was a tragedy entitled 
"Mary Stuart" — a subject naturally attractive to a 
young Scottish poet. But his genius was utterly 
undramatic ; and, although it possesses some fine pas- 
sages, it failed in commanding attention. " Tlie Sabbath" 
appeared several years afterwards ; and, being the best, 
is deservedly the most popular of all his works. After 
two summers appeared " The Birds of Scotland," in 
which, conjoined with the main theme, we have most 
engaging developments and revelations of the poet's 
own tastes, feelings, opinions, and enjoyments ; episodes 
which, in feet, form the true charm of Grahame's 
writings. Among its more striking passages are the 
description of the shipwrecked Sailor - boy ; of the 
Cuckoo and its nest ; his denunciation of the callous 
spirit that would sweep away from the landscape the 
dwellings of the poor ; his lament for the rural groups 
shut up in the city garrets ; and his horror at the 
miseries entailed on the young by the manufacturing 
system — a theme in which he anticipates Wordsworth. 

In " The British Georgics," the last and most ambi- 
tious of Grahame's productions, we have disappointment, 
less from the falling off in power, than from the 
unhappy selection of subject. Didactic themes are 
doubtful ones for verse ; because, in verse, ornament is 
essential to truth ; and we are apt to find the garnish- 
ing much more palatable than the dish itself. As to 
farming, especially — a practical art — we doubt not that 
the Greek husbandman would prefer his neighbour's 
experience to Hesiod's rules ; and, among the Romans, 



EXTRACT— THE COVENANTERS. 29 

Cato the Censor was more likely to be an authority 
than Virgil the poet. At all events, we know that the 
British Agriculturist neglects James Grahame's "Geor- 
gics" for Henry Stephens' "Book of the Farm." The 
really useful lessons attempted to be conveyed in the 
various sections are almost necessarily and hopelessly 
prosaic ; but many of the illustrative details are fine as 
poetry ; and the painting of external nature, and of the 
seasons — legitimate themes for the muse — are full of 
effect and truthful beauty. 

The following picture of the fearful persecutions and 
steadfast faith of the Covenanters, is in James Grahame's 
very best manner : — 

" With them each day was holy ; but that morn 
On which the angel said ' See ichere the Lord 
Was laid)' joyous arose ; to die that day 
Was bless. Long ere the dawn, by devious ways, 
O'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought 
The upland moors, where rivers, there but brooks, 
Dispart to different seas. Fast by such brooks 
A little glen is sometimes scooped, a plat 
With greensward gay, and flowers that strangers seem 
Amid the heathery wild, that all around 
Fatigues the eye : in solitudes like these 
Thy persecuted children, Scotia, foiled 
A tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws : 
There, leaning on his spear, (one of the array 
Whose gleam, in former days, had scathed the rose 
On England's banner, and had powerless struck 
The infatuate monarch and his wavering host), 
The lyart veteran heard the word of God 
By Cameron thundered, or by Renwick poured 
In gentle stream : then rose the song, the loud 
Acclaim of praise ; the wheeling plover ceased 
Her plaint ; the solitary place was glad, 
And on the distant cairn the watcher's ear 
Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note. 
But years more gloomy followed ; and no more 



30 CANNING— FRERE—GIFPOED. 

The assembled people dared, in face of day. 
To worship God, or even at the dead 
Of night, save when the wintry storm raved fierce, 
And thunder-peals compelled the men of blood 
To couch within their dens ; then dauntlessly 
The scattered few would meet, in some deep dell 
By rocks o'ercanopied, to hear the voice, 
Their faithful pastor's voice ; he by the gleam 
Of sheeted lightning oped the sacred book, 
And words of comfort spake : over their souls 
His accents soothing came — as to her young 
The heathfowl's plumes, when, at the close of eve, 
She gathers in, mournful, her brood dispersed 
By murderous sport, and o'er the remnant spreads 
Fondly her wings ; close nestling 'neath her breast, 
They, cherished, cower amid the purple blooms." 

In reference to the nationality of Graharae's first and 
best poem, " The Sabbath," Professor Wilson has beau- 
tifully observed, that — 

" How still the morning of the hallow'd day ! " 

is a line that could have been uttered only by a holy 
Scottish heart. For we alone know what is indeed 
Sabbath silence — an earnest of everlasting rest. To our 
hearts, the very ' birds of Scotland' sing holily on that 
day. A sacred smile is on the dewy flowers. The lilies 
look whiter in their loveliness : the bush-rose reddens 
in the sun with a diviner dye ; and with a more celestial 
scent the hoary hawthorn sweetens the wilderness." 

Grahame died in 1811, in his forty-ninth year, and his 
dirge was sung in fitting strains by his youthful friend 
and admirer, the future author of " The Isle of Palms " 
and " The City of the Plague." 

We have mentioned that what Canning and Frere did 
for the Darwinians in "The Loves of the Triangles," and 
for the rabid Germanic school in " The Rovers," " The 
University of Gottingen," and " The liTeedy Knife- 
Grinder," GifFord did for the Litchfield coterie and the 



ROBERT BLOOMFIELD. 31 

Delia Cruscans, in " The Masviad and Baviad," and with 
a greater spice of savagery. All three were poets, and, as 
such, might have left enviable reputations ; but Canning 
became orator and politician, and, by his transcendent 
talents, attained to the first rank. Frere took to diplo- 
macy, in which he showed himself an adept — enlivening 
liis leisure by those exquisite translations from the 
Spanish, which extorted the enthusiastic admiration of 
Scott ; and by that extravaganza of the Pulci and Casti 
school, Whistlecraft's " Prospectus of a National Poem," 
which was the forerunner of the more pungent " Beppo " 
and " Don Juan" of Byron, and " The Mad Banker " of 
William Wastle. Gifford, who had less of wit and 
humour, but whose genius was more forcible and 
austere, took to editing and reviewing. He was alike 
able and erudite, severe, cynical, and uncompromising ; 
but he possessed, strange to say, a vein of pathos ; and 
his "Verses to Anna," and "On a Tuft of Early Violets," 
are remarkable, not only for their graceful delicacy of 
sentiment, but for something at least akin to genuine 
tenderness. 

Nearly about the time when this able and remarkable 
trio were demolishing the gimcrack edifices of those 
fustian-artificers, who played their fantastic tricks before 
the reading public with such self-complacency, a simple 
child of nature — worth them all thrice-told — was drag- 
ged from his shoemaking garret upon the stage, under 
the auspices of Mr Capel Loft. This was Robert Bloom- 
field, at that time thirty-two years of age, and whose 
modest manuscript had previously been submitted to 
and shunned by several booksellers. "The Farmer's 
Boy " had in its descriptions and sentiments the fresh- 
ness of nature and the impress of truth. It was evident 
that the landscapes were " taken on the spot," and that 
the reflections flowed from the heart. The poem soon 
acquired, as it deserved, a widespread popularity, and 
secured for its author a niche in the shrine of his 



32 " THE fakmer's boy." 

country's literature. His other principal productions 
were, " Rural Tales," " The Banks of the Wye," " Wild- 
flowers," " News from the Farm," " Hazel wood Hall, a 
Drama," and "May-day with the Muses," — each of 
which has some peculiar and distinctive excellencies, 
but all of the kind which first attracted attention to 
" The Farmer's Boy." 

Beyond any example, save that of Clare, Bloomfield 
seemed to be a poet almost by intuition ; for in point of 
taste, melody, and accuracy, his early verses, composed 
without almost a glimpse of education, were never 
excelled by his after efforts. While a ragged boy, seated 
on the green bank beneath the wild rose-bush, watching 
the rooks in the cornfield, the young enthusiast had 

" Looked on nature with a poet's eye ; " 

and all its shows were deeply impressed on his heart and 
imagination. His great characteristics are, observation 
and truthfulness ; and hence his pictures have the accu- 
racy of daguerreotypes. As Dryden said of Shakespeare, 
" he needed not the spectacles of books to read Nature : 
he looked inward and found her there." The same 
excellence appertains to his sketches of cottage-life. His 
swains were no Colins and Lubins, who in red silk 
handkerchiefs and knee-smalls, tune the reed in Arca- 
dian fashion, and lay down crooks, decorated with 
ribbon, to recount their hapless loves — according to the 
recipes of Shenstone — but sturdy unlettered Suffolk 
hinds, who shave only on Sunday mornings — who 
occasionally get muzzy in returning from the neigh- 
bouring fair or market, famous for its "Corn, horn, 
wool, and yarn," and, in consequence thereof, awake 
with queer headaches — who devoutly believe in ghosts, 
and occasionally mistake a donkey for one — who to 
nectar, " the drink of the gods," prefer mild home- 
brewed ; labour lustily from morning of Monday till eve 
of Saturday ; make love at once with sheepishness and 



"the blind child." 33 

fervour ; think of themselves as Englishmen, and hold 
all other countries in the world cheap ; liave affectionate 
hearts and small knowledge ; grow grey, unambitiously, 
on or near the spot where they were born, amid their 
children's children, and then die — to be forgotten, like 
their long line of humble progenitors. Such delineations 
are rife in the " Wild-flowers" and " Rural Tales," amid 
which we find " The Fakenham Ghost," " Market Night," 
and " The Miller's Maid," which are imbued not only 
with a sweet vein of rustic poetry, fresh and faithful as 
that of Allan Ramsay, but are valuable as reflected 
pictures of English country life and manners. Can 
anything be finer in their way than the lines, in "News 
from the Farm," descriptive of a blind child ? — 

" Where's the blind child so admirably fair, 
With guileless dimples, and with flaxen hair 
That waves in every breeze 1 He's often seen 
Beyond yon cottage wall, or on the green 
With others, mateh'd in spirit and in size, 
Health in their cheeks and rapture in their eyes. 
That full expanse of voice, to children dear, 
Soul of their sports, is duly cherish'd here. 
And hark ! that laugh is his — that jovial cry — 
He hears the ball and trundling hoop brush by, 
And runs the giddy course with all his might — 
A very child in everything but sight — 
With circumscribed, but not abated powers, 
Play, the great object of his infant hours. 
In many a game he takes a noisy part, 
And shows the native gladness of his heart; 
But soon he hears, on pleasure all intent, 
The new suggestion, and the quick assent ; 
Tlie grove invites delight, thrills every breast 
To leap the ditch, and seek the downy nest. 
Away they start, leave balls and hoops behind, 
And one companion leave — the boy is blind. 
His fancy paints their distant paths so gay, 
That childish fortitude awhile gives way ; 
c 



34 JOHN LETDEN. 

He feels liis dreadful loss — yet short the pain — 
Soon he resumes his cheerfulness again. 
Pondering how best his moments to employ, 
He sings his httle song of nameless joy, 
Creeps on the warm green turf for many an hour, 
And plucks, by chance, the white and yellow flower ; 
Smoothing their stems, while resting on his knees, 
He binds a nosegay which he never sees ; 
Along the homewax'd path then feels his way, 
Lifting his brow against the shining day, 
And, with a joyful rapture round his eyes. 
Presents a sighing parent with the prize !" 

When we consider the circumstances under which the 
early poetry of Bloorafield was composed — in a bare 
grim garret, by a feeble-constitutioued man approach- 
ing middle life, and amid the fatigues of mechanical 
labour, which yet scarcely sufficed to satisfy the clamant 
necessities of a wife and three children — " The Farmer's 
Boy" ought not to be regarded otherwise than as a 
wonderful production. Few are its errors in taste, 
either as to matter or manner ; and its style is simple, 
chaste, unaffected, nay, occasionally elegant. Bloom- 
field's reading at this time must have been necessarily 
extremely limited — so he had few models to guide him ; 
but his ear seemed naturally attuned to the music of 
verse ; and his composition, if not so rich and varied, 
almost vies in harmony with that of Rogers and Camp- 
bell. Virtuous, simple-hearted, sober-minded, he died 
in 1823. Sad it is to think — nay, disgraceful to the age 
in which we live — that the clouds of poverty should 
have been allowed to hang around him to the very 
last ; and that sunshine, in the shape of that fame 
which gold cannot, and genius can alone purchase, now 
only " gilds the turf that wraps his grave." 

From circumstances almost as obscure and humble as 
those of Bloomfield, the son of a Roxburghshire peasant, 
John Leyden fought his way to distinction as a poet 



"scenes of infancy." 35 

and scholar. His temperament was widely different 
from that of the author of " The Farmer's Boy;" and 
all obstacles were made to give way to his energetic 
temperament and indefatigable industry. From edit- 
ing old Scottish poems, he struck into the paths of 
original composition, and poured forth several Border 
ballads, which won the hearts of Lewis and Scott. The 
finest of these are, " The Elfin King," " The Cout of 
Keeldar," and " Lord Soulis." Still finer as poetry, 
perhaps, are his " Mermaid of Corryvreckan," his " Ode 
on visiting Flodden," his " Portuguese Hymn to the 
Virgin," and his " Sonnet to the Sabbath Morning," 
which is said by some to have suggested Grahame's 
chief work. " The Scenes of Infancy" — his most la- 
boured and ambitious poetical effort — possesses many 
fine passages, and is characteristic and quite worthy of 
his genius. Many of its descriptions and illustrations 
linger on the memory of the reader, and must be ori- 
ginal in their tone, as they remind us of nothing else. 
Among its happiest things are the " Invocation to the 
Ancient Harp of Teviotdale," the " Reflections on the 
Eve of his Sister's Burial," the " Episode of Mary Scott, 
the Flower of Yarrow," the " Description of the Eildon 
Hills at Sunset ;" and, above all, the " Apostrophe to 
Aurelia," at the conclusion of the first part : — 

" Ah, dear Aurelia ! when this arm shall gtiide 
Thy twilight steps no more by Teviot's side — 
When I to pine in Eastern realms have gone. 
And years have passed, and thou remain'st alone — 
Wilt thou, still partial to thy youthful flame, 
Eegard the turf where first I carved thy name, 
And think thy wanderer, far beyond the sea, 
False to his heart, w?,s ever true to thee ? 



Ah ! spare that tearful look — 'tis death to see — 
Nor break the tortured heart that bleeds for thee. 



36 "scenes op infancy." 

These eyes that still with dimming tears o'erflow. 
Will haunt me when thou canst not see my woe ; 
For, sad as he that dies in early spring. 
When flowers begin to blow, and birds to sing, 
When Nature's joy a moment warms the heart, 
And makes ifc doubly hard from life to part, 
I hear the whispers of the dancing gale, 
And fearful listen for the flapping sail, 
Seek in these natal shades a soft relief. 
And steal a pleasure from maturing grief. 

Yes ! in these shades this fond adoring mind 
Had hoped in thee a dearer self to find, 
While those dear eyes in pearly light that shine, 
Fond thought ! had borrowed manlier beams from mine. 
Ah ! fruitless hope of bliss that ne'er may be ! 
Shall but this lonely heart survive to me 1 
No ! in the temple of my purer mind 
Thine imaged form shall ever live enshrined, 
And hear the vows to first afi'ection due 
Still breathed — for love that ceases ne'er was true." 



When in India, Leyden translated many pieces from 
the Persic and Hindostanee, v^hich may be ranked in 
merit with those of Sir William Jones. Perhaps the 
best are the " Lament for Kama," and " The Dirge of 
Tippoo Sultaun," both of which are pervaded by a 
majestic solemnity. His reputation as a poet, however, 
is mainly based on his ballads and his " Scenes of In- 
fancy ;" these being the most characteristic of his tastes, 
feelings, and powers. They are original and racy, and 
smack of the native Border soil. The genius of Leyden 
was intensely national ; and throughout life he exhi- 
bited the energy of the sturdy Borderer. He died at 
Java in 1811, from pestilential fever, amid the delirium 
of which he was heard to sing snatches of gathering 
songs and foraying ballads. He was only in his thirty- 
sixth year when, as Sir Walter Scott in his " Lord of 
the Isles" pathetically laments — 



CHARLOTTE SMITH, AMELIA OPIE, MES HUNTER, ETC. 37 

** His bright and brief career was o'er, 

And mute his tuneful strains ; 
Quenched was his lamp of varied lore. 
That loved the Hght of song to pour — 
A distant and a dismal shore 

Has Leyden's cold reihains ! " 

To this first section of our subject are also referable 
the poetical compositions of Charlotte Smith and Amelia 
Opie. The sonnets of the former — who was an associate 
of Hayley and Cowper — were extensively popular in 
their day, and are characterised by musical versification, 
and by delicacy of sentiment, carried not seldom, how- 
ever, to affectation. They were apt illustrations of the 
satirist's " Fourteen Lines of Sensibility ; ''' and then — 

" The closing couplet of each sonnet 
Shone like the cherry on a Highland bonnet." 

"We allow," says Sir Walter Scott, in his biography 
of this lady, " high praise to the sad and sweet effusions 
of Mrs Smith's muse ; but we cannot admit that, by 
these alone, she could have risen to the height of 
eminence which we are disposed to claim for her as 
the authoress of her prose narratives." The same may 
be said of Amelia Opie, although her lyrics of the 
"Orphan Boy" and "Forget Me Not " extorted the 
praise of Lord Jeffrey, and have, from their natural 
pathos, sufficient vitality in them to keep them popular 
favourites. Mrs Hunter struck a higher chord in her 
"Cherokee Indian's Death-Song;" while Mrs Grant, 
in her " Highlanders, and other Poems, " respectably 
assisted in sustaining the honours of the Scottish muse. 
None of these accomplished ladies, however, evinced 
the powers of imagination which shone out in the 
" Psyche " of Mrs Tighe — an adventurous and elaborate 
effort, full of power and beauty, which wanted only 
a little more artistic skill and concentration to have 
entitled it to a place among first-class productions. 



38 WILLIAM SOTHEBT. 

Several other poets of merit — now little known, 
save hj casual extract — did their best to illustrate the 
same period ; for, as Dr Johnston has characteristically 
observed, " Parnassus has its flowers of transient fra- 
grance, as well as its trees of stately growth, and its 
laurels of eternal verdure." Crowe's " Lewisdon Hill," 
Bidlake's " Country Parson," Gisborne's " Walks in a 
Forest," and Cottle's " Malvern Hills," were, as local 
poems, long admitted to the same library-shelf with the 
volumes of Denham and Dyer ; while the " Influence 
of Local Attachment," by Polwhele, not only evinced 
considerable powers of thought and language, but gave 
indications of a higher excellence, which, however, the 
future efibrts of the reverend author were not destined 
to fulfil. William Sotheby particularly distinguished 
himself as a translator from the German, and William 
Roscoe from the Italian ; but, in their own compo- 
sitions, the former wanted originality and the latter 
— who was of the Hayley school — thews and sinews. 
Eoscoe's strength lay in another path — that of histo- 
rical composition — wherein he achieved the eminence 
he deserved. Sotheby was never great, except when 
treading in some beaten path. His "Saul," an epic 
poem, and his "Constance de Castille," a romance in 
the manner of Scott, as well as his " Italy," a descrip- 
tive poem, contain each fine and spirited passages; but 
even these are almost always reflections of what has 
attracted his own particular admiration in others. As 
a translator, it would be difficult to name his superior. 
He had the good sense to discover that his great forte 
lay in the transfusion of ideas from one language into 
another ; and he not only enthusiastically, but indus- 
triously, employed himself in thus enriching English 
literature. Wieland himself acknowledged the spirit 
and accuracy which pervaded his version of " Oberon ;" 
his " Georgics " called forth the admiration of Jeffrey ; 
and his " Iliad " and " Odyssey," alike in elegance and 



REV. GEORGE CRABBE. 39 

correctness, were placed by Professor Wilson at the 
head of all our translations of Homer. With three 
such testimonials for his epitaph, it cannot be said that 
Sotheby, as a literary labourer, lived in vain. 

Without any disparagement to Darwin or Hayley, 
to Lewis or Ley den, to Graham e or Kirke White, to 
Canning, or Frere, or GifFord, or Bloomfield, or other 
of the poets just adverted to, a far greater now comes 
before us in the author of " The Village," " The Parish 
Register," and the "Lyrical Tales." George Crabbe 
emerged from an obscurity scarcely less hopeless than 
that of the author of " The Farmer's Boy " — certainly 
more so than that of Robert Burns, The details of his 
infancy and boyhood are such as to weigh on the heart 
like a very nightmare — an utter hopelessness seemed 
to environ him ; but the Cyclops was not even thus to 
be shut up in his cave. Through a more than Cretan 
labyrinth of doubt and dismay and darkness, he battled 
his way over all obstacles forwards to the open day ; 
and his works are now, and for ever, a prominent and 
a distinctive portion of our literature. Crabbe is alike 
the Teniers and the Wilkie of our poets. He was not 
unfelicitously designated by Sir Walter Scott "the 
British Juvenal ; " and Lord Byron characterises him 
as "Nature's sternest painter, but her best." 

It is not my purpose to interfere at all with the 
strange and striking biography of George Crabbe, or to 
record the early struggles under which most would have 
sunk despairing, but which at length terminated in 
his introduction to Edmund Burke and Samuel John- 
son, and in the publication, first of " The Library," and 
then of " The Village " — poems which, for their raciness 
and originality of manner, as well as truthful descrip- 
tion, attracted immediate notice. In them he did not 
show that confidence of composition which he after- 
wards did, when an author exulting in the exuberance 
of mature strength, and when possessed of a popularity 



40 CR abbe's works — THEIR ORIGIN ALITT. 

"which licensed an occasional vagary ; but they con- 
tain passages which Crabbe himself never afterwards 
excelled — his description of a "Parish Workhouse" 
being as likely to endure as any equal number of 
couplets in British literature. 

Crabbe now settled down into a parish clergyman, 
the duties of which from that time till his death — half 
a century afterwards — he most faithfully and assidu- 
ously performed. For a great number of years his 
voice was unheard ; but, happily for literature, the 
fire of his inspiration had been only stifled up, not 
extinguished, and was yet to break forth more bril- 
liantly. "The Village" was published in 1783 ; and 
it was not until 1807, after a lapse of twenty-four years, 
that he again appeared as a poet in his " Parish Regis- 
ter" — certainly one of the most characteristic of his 
writings, whether we regard subject or mode of handling. 
"The Borough" and "The Tales "—each marked by 
the same daring originality in matter and manner, 
and by the same very peculiar beauties and defects — 
followed within the succeeding five years, thoroughly 
winning for their author a place among the master 
spirits of his age. The last great work of Crabbe was 
the " Tales of the Hall," w^hich appeared in 1819, and 
exhibited no symptoms of falling oj0F; although in 
these his exhibitions of character are, for the most 
part, taken from higher grades of society than those 
in the depicturing of which he had won his early 
laurels. A subsequent collection — but scarcely equal to 
these in merit, from not having received the master's 
finishing touches, (for Crabbe, with all his seeming 
fluency and ease, was a great elaborator,) — appeared 
posthumously, under the able editorship of his son 
George. 

If originality, if the striking out a new path, consti- 
tutes one of the highest claims to poetical excellence, 
few are entitled to stand in the same rank with Crabbe. 



crabbe's -works— their originality. 41 

Indeed, it would be difficult to point to any prototype, 
either as regards his style or his subjects. The nearest 
approach I have met with to his sententiousness, is in 
the old, quaint, pointed satires of Dr Donne ; and some- 
thing of his graphic truth and elaborate minuteness of 
description may be found in the verse of Chaucer, more 
especially " The Canterbury Pilgrims." But Crabbe 
added much— very much — which is unequivocally his 
own, and which acknowledges no borrowed lustre. 
His sea-side sketches are taken from observation ; they 
savour of the briny breeze and the sea-weed — of the 
decaying fish on the beach — of the tarry boat and its 
bilge-water, — and are not mere imaginary limnings 
like the " Piscatory Eclogues" of Sannazarius, or of 
Phineas Fletcher, where " Tom Bowling" figures as 
Thelgon, and " Black-eyed Susan" as Chromis. He 
" paints the cot as truth would paint it, and as bards 
would not." His pictures of humble life have none 
of the " Peter Pastoral" about them, and are invaluable 
as truthful contrasts to the Hobbinols and Biggin Davies 
of Spenser — to the Marinas and Dorydons of William 
Browne — the Molly Moggs and Evauders of Gaj — the 
Damons and Daphnes of Pope — and the Corydons and 
Phyllises of Shenstone. These were all alike creatures 
of a cloudland Arcadia, moulded into any form or 
figure of the poet's imagination, and who might have 
pipes in their mouths, either for tobacco or music. 
Allan Ramsay is the only predecessor of Crabbe who 
approaches him in truth ; but the difference between 
their protraitures is as wide as that between the lim- 
nings of Titian and those of Rembrandt. Ramsay's is 
the Doric, and, as far as his sketches go, the real sun- 
shiny Doric. Crabbe's landscapes take in a wider and 
much more varied range — the sandy sea-coast, and its 
stunted belts of woodland — the wide expanse of black, 
bleak moor, with its enlivening patches of cultivation 
— the umbrageous forest, with its tumbling and tossing 



42 THEIE TRUTHFULNESS. 

stream — and the green ascent of hills overlooking all 
these. He gives us the shade as well as the sunshine — 
the gloom as well as the glitter ; nay, he seems to 
prefer jN"ature in her wintry to her summer aspects, 
and to paint men and manners in hues whose truth 
we are often called upon to deplore, while forced to 
acknowledge. 

The characters of Crabbeare those of real and every- 
day life, not monsters of iniquity gorgeously decked out 
in silks and satins, like the heroes of Lord Byron ; nor 
angelic visions of humanity, like many of the person- 
ages of Moore. They perform their parts, just as their 
prototypes do in the great world ; but we fondly hope 
that a larger portion of their vices than of their virtues 
has been disclosed to us. He ransacks every lazar-house 
of the heart, and anatomises the very heart itself, with 
an unsparing scalpel. His forenoon's walk is amid the 
hovels of poverty, the abodes of guilt, of misery, and of 
wretchedness, where the thatch is rotting on the roof, 
and where the window, rudely patched with paper, 
" admits the tempest, yet excludes the day." Nothing 
is so insignificant as to escape his notice, from the ashes- 
heap and the miry kennel before the threshold, to the 
undisturbed and downy dust in the window-corner ; 
from the fishing-rod or fowling-piece hung in the secret 
nook, to the fir-deal table, daubed Avith the glistening 
and glutinous streaks of last night's ale. So with the 
inmates — nothing in the outward man or woman 
escapes observation and chronicling, from the well- 
worn cap and kerchief to the pieced jacket, the old 
glazed hat, and the tattered shoes. He enumerates the 
very plants in their little gardens, and the succession 
of their yearly crops. Everything that relates to 
themselves, and to their fathers before them — what 
were their callings, and what their characters — the 
number of their sons and daughters, dutiful or rebellious 
— their respective ages — their qualifications and defi- 



CRABBE AND EGBERT BURNS. 43 

ciencies — the colour of their eyes, and the cut of their 
hair. 

Ill Burns, poverty, from the fascination and heartiness 
of his pictures, is made to look almost like a piece of 
good fortune. It is associated with kindly simplicity, 
with proud patriotism, with devoted affection, with un- 
compromising independence. Pastoral and patriarchal 
integrity and uprightness are weighed in the balance 
with the precarious entrancements of luxury and refine- 
ment ; and life, in its lowliness, is invested with a 
peculiar charm, which might be ill exchanged for the 
polish of rank, or the varnished hollowness of artificial 
manners. Such delineations we have in the " Hal- 
lowe'en," in his " Epistles to his Brother Poets," and in 
many of the immortal "Songs;" and who ever rose 
from " The Cottar's Saturday Night" without a height- 
ened glow of religious feeling, and without a proud 
conviction that the true glory of man is based, not on 
his mere transient external circumstances, but on his 
moral nature ? Crabbe's etchings are equally deep, but 
very different ; and, unfortunately, I fear, not therefore 
a jot less faithful. In his poetry he reads us a stern 
and instructive lesson, by exhibiting to us the sinfulness 
of sin in the certain misery of its issues, while he endea- 
vours to lower the pride of the human heart, by showing 
how often its motives originate in selfishness. The 
gloom of his pictures is, however, occasionally lighted up 
by redeeming traits, tending to show that, fallen though 
our nature may be, something of " the divinity yet stirs 
within us." His episodes of " Phoebe Dawson" in the 
" Borough," of " Ruth," and of " Charles the Painter" 
in " Tales of the Hall," and his tale of " Resentment," 
where the hard-hearted wife allows the old man and 
his ass to shiver in the winter's snow, overflow with 
touching tenderness ; while the stories of " Peter 
Grimes" in " The Parish Register," and of " Smugglers 
and Poachers" in " Tales of the Hall," on the other 



44 "the gipsy's tent." 

hand attest the harrowing power of his pencil, and 
weigh on the heart like a very nightmare. 

As a short characteristic specimen of Crabbe's general 
manner, the following sketch may be fairly taken. It 
is of a gipsy's encampment : — 

" Again, the country was enclosed, a wide 
And sandy road has banks t)n either side ; 
Where, lo ! a hollow on the left appeared, 
And there a gipsy tribe their tent had reared. 
'Twas open spread to catch the morning sun. 
And they had now their early meal begun. 
When two brown boys just left their grassy seat 
The early traveller witli their prayers to greet. 
Within, the father, who from fences nigh 
Had brought the fuel for the fire's supply, 
Watched now the feeble blaze, and stood dejected by. 
On ragged rug, just borrowed from the bed. 
And by the hand of coarse indulgence fed. 
In dirty patchwork negligently dressed, 
Reclined the wife, an infant at her breast. 
In her wild face some touch of grace remained 
Of vigour palsied, and of beauty stained. 
Her blood-shot eyes on her unheeding mate 
Were wrathful turned, and seemed her wants to state, 
Cursing his tardy aid : her mother there 
With gipsy state engrossed the only chair. 
Solemn and dull her look : with such she stands. 
And reads the milk-maid's fortune in her hands. 
Tracing the lines of life ; assumed through years, 
Each feature now the steady falsehood wears. 
With hard and savage eye she views the food. 
And grudging pinches their intruding brood. 
Last in the group the worn-out grandsu'e sits 
Neglected, lost, and living but by fits ; 
Useless, despised, his worthless labours done, 
And half protected by the vicious son. 
Who half supports him ; he, with heavy glance, 
Views the young rufi&ans who round him dance ; 



"sir EUSTACE GREY." 45 

And, by the sadness in his face, appears 
To trace the progress of their future years ; 
Through what strange course of misery, vice, deceit. 
Must wildly wander each unpractised cheat ; 
What shame and grief, what punishment and pain, 
Spoi't of fierce passions, must each child sustain — 
Ere they, like him, approach their latter end, 
Without a hope, a comfort, or a friend." 

On a key totally different is pitched the lyrical tale of 
" Sir Eustace Grey." Having shown Crabbe's minute 
graphic faithfulness, let us turn to his imaginative energy. 
He is describing the visions of frenzy, and we have him 
in the hour and the power of his poetic inspiration — 

" Those fiends, upon a shaking fen. 

Fixed me in dark tempestuous night ; 
There never trod the feet of men, 

There flocked the fowl in wintry flight ; 
There danced the moor's deceitful light, 

Above the pool where sedges grow ; 
And when the morning sun shone bright, 

It shone upon a field of snow. 

" They hung me on a bough so small — 

The rook could build her nest no higher ; 
They fixed me on the trembling ball 

That crowns the steeple's quivering spire ; 
They set me where the seas retire. 

But drown with their returning tide. 
And made me flee the mountain's fire. 

When rolling from its burning side. 

" I've hung upon the ridgy steep 

Of clifis, and held the rambling brier ; 
I've plunged below the billowy deep. 

Where air was sent me to respire ; 
I've been where hungry wolves retire ; 

And (to complete my woes) I've ran 
Where bedlam's crazy crew conspire 

Against the life of reasoning man. 



46 CRABBE'S STYLE AND MANNER. 

" I've furled in storms the flapping sail, 
By hanging from the top-mast head ; 
I've served the vilest slaves in gaol, 

And picked the dunghill's spoil for bread ; 
I've made the badger's hole my bed, 

I've wandered with a gipsy crew, 
I've dreaded all the guilty dread, 
And done what they would fear to do. 

" On sand where ebbs and flows the flood, 

Midway they placed and bade me die ; 
Propt on my staff, I stoutly stood 

When the swift waves came rolling by ; 
And high they rose, and still more high. 

Till my lips drank the bitter brine : 
I sobbed convulsed, then cast mine eye. 

And saw the tide's reflowing sign." 

As Crabbe exhibited the magnificence of his imagina- 
tion in " Sir Eustace Grev," so did he the depth of his 
pathos in the " Hall of Justice," which hurries us on 
through scenes of surprise, horror, and infamy, to melt 
us into tears of compassion for contrite guilt. 

The tales of Crabbe, considered merely as stories, are 
often meagre, desultory, and defective in construction — 
nay, occasionally trite and commonplace : his forte did 
not lie in novel combination of circumstances ; for he 
had neither fertility of invention nor ingenuity of plot. 
They derive their interest, like the novels of Richardson 
and of Samuel Warren, from the aggregate impression 
of a series of seemingly trifling circumstances faithfully 
and elaborately chronicled. He laid not his pavement 
down in masses — he was a worker in mosaic. 

Crabbe can scarcely be said to have looked on nature 
with the eye of a poet — he had little sympathy with the 
mere picturesque ; and to him the romantic associated 
itself with the ridiculous. Sir Philip Sidney must have 
been an enigma to him, and Don Quixote chronicled 



crabbe's style and manner. 47 

among stark lunatics. None of his compositions, save 
the grand lyrical ballad of " Sir Eustace Grey," show 
much of imagination — his fancy was rigidly kept under 
the dominion of reason ; but confining himself to the 
palpable impressions of reality, he thence showed that 
" truth is, indeed, often stranger than fiction." Nothing 
is overlooked, although his microscopic eye takes in 
alike the mighty and the mean ; and he seems occa- 
sionally to regard both with the same intellectual 
composure. That he preferred delineating the dark 
side of things seemed to arise from an idiosyncrasy of 
his genius. The poetical taste of Crabbe was founded 
on " The Deserted Village," on Pope, and Churchill ; 
but the vigour and originality of his own intellect 
carried the boundaries of that school of writing into 
entirely new and untrodden regions. His heroic 
couplet has much more resemblance to that of Cowper 
than of any other poet — alternately sweet and harsh, 
classic and quaint, melodious and rugged. Between 
their minds there were not wanting several strong 
points of approximation ; but Cowper was more hope- 
ful — his muse delighted occasionally to catch the sun- 
shine on its aspiring wings ; and while Crabbe could 
only see sin and sorrow, selfishness and suffering, to the 
end of man's earthly chapter, Cowper lightened up his 
twilight dreams with visions of the Millennium. That 
Wordsworth adopted views of human nature quite 
antagonistic to those of Crabbe, will be shown when I 
shall have occasion again to refer to him, in contrast 
with that other great master. 

I must satisfy myself with having adverted to, rather 
than discussed, the varied and manifold merits of 
Crabbe — a man of peculiar talent, and of singular origi- 
nality, but whose muse, except in two or three brief 
flights, never, as I have intimated, attempted the higher 
regions of poetry. Shortly after his time, three other 
true poets showed themselves in succession ; and whom 



48 SAMUEL EOGERS. 

I thus mention together, simply because they each 
seemed originally to have formed themselves on "vvhat 
appeared to have struck them as most deserving of 
admiration in the current literature of their boyhood — 
more especially the poetry of Goldsmith — for to him 
we owe those fresher impressions of nature, which dis- 
tinguish " The Traveller " and " The Deserted Village " 
from " The Vanity of Human Wishes " of Johnson, 
"The Campaign" of Addison, and "The "Windsor 
Forest " of Pope. The three writers whom I have 
thus somewhat forcibly brought together, were Samuel 
Rogers, Lisle Bowles, and James Montgomery. Bowles 
is now with the past, having died within the last 
twelvemonth, at the patriarchal age of ninety ; Rogers 
and Montgomery, in advanced and honoured years, 
happily yet remain to us, 

Samuel Rogers more immediately followed Crabbe — 
his first production, " The Ode to Superstition," having 
appeared in 1786. It not only smacks of his peculiar 
genius, but is characterised by that elaboration for 
which all his subsequent writings are noted ; but his 
reputation was not established until he gave to the 
world "The Pleasures of Memory," a poem exquisite in 
conception and execution, combining a fine feeling of 
nature and a high tone of morality, with elegant 
scholarship, and a nicety of taste approaching to 
fastidiousness. Nor was it wonderful that it imme- 
diately rose into that popular favour which, after a 
lapse of sixty years, it still deservedly retains ; for it is 
pervaded by beauty and grace of sentiment, and in 
versification approaches the perfection of art. Although 
its highest passages are not so high as the finest in 
"The Pleasures of Hope," it is freer from traces of 
juvenility, and, with less of ardent enthusiasm, may be 
said to be better sustained throughout. Yet it also has 
its more prominent passages ; and these, as it strikes 
me, are the twilight landscape with which it opens ; 






"pleasures of memory." 49 

the introduction to the tale of Derwent Lake; the 
allusion to the Savoyard Boy leaving the Alps ; the 
apostrophe to the Bee, as illustrative of the powers of 
memory ; the affecting reference to a deceased brother ; 
and the lines on Greenwich Hospital. The concluding 
paragraph is also apposite and beautiful ; — 

" Hail ! Memory, hail ! in thy exhaustless mine, 
From age to age, unnumbered treasures shine ; 
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey. 
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway ; 
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone, 
The only pleasures we can call our own. 
Lighter than air Hope's summer visions die. 
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky ; 
If but a beam of sober reason play, 
Lo ! Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away ! 
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, 
Snatch the rich relics of a well- spent hour ? 
These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, 
Pour round her path a stream of living light ; 
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, 
When Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest ! " 

The "Epistle to a Friend," which followed in 1797, was 
another working out of the same classic vein of thought, 
imagery, and sentiment — a little inferior, perhaps, in 
freshness, and a good deal so in general interest. Some 
of its descriptive sketches are elaborately fine, and not 
only graceful, but exquisite touches of nature sparkle 
throughout. A general straining after effect, however, 
is but too apparent ; and, in spite of his own anathema 
against false taste, Rogers here occasionally reminds us 
of the scholar of Apelles, who, unable to paint his Helen 
beautiful, was determined to make her fine. 

The " Fragments of a Voyage of Columbus" did not 
appear for a good many years after, and are of a higher 
cast than any of his former writings. A deep-toned 
solemnity pervades the whole, and occasionally we have 



so " VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS," ETC. 

thoughts that verge on the sublime. But it can only 
be likened to snatches of a fine melody heard by sum- 
mer sunset on the sea-beach, or transient glimpses of a 
magnificent landscape caught through clouds of white 
rolling mist. 

The allusion to Columbus entering the vast Atlantic 
is full of solemn grandeur : — 

" 'Twas night. The moon, o'er the wide wave, disclosed 
Her awful face ; and Nature's self reposed ; 
When slowly rising in the azure sky, 
Thi'ee white sails shone — but to no mortal eye, 
Entering a boundless sea. In slumber cast. 
The very ship-boy on the dizzy mast 
Half breathed his orisons ! Alone unchanged, 
Calmly beneath, the great Commander ranged 
Thoughtful, not sad." 

The work, however, fine as it is in detached portions, 
is too fragmentary, and rather stimulates curiosity than 
gratifies expectation. 

"Jacqueline" is pitched on quite another and oppo- 
site key. It is far less ambitious, and seems an attempt 
to catch those natural evanescent domestic graces which 
lie beyond the reach of art. If so, it cannot be said to 
be quite successful ; for, with some touches of simple 
beauty, it is, to say the best of it, a faint and feeble per- 
formance — and, certes, at antipodes to the "Lara" of 
Byron, along with which it was originally published. 
The fastidiousness of Rogers must have ever rendered 
his success as a narrative writer more than doubtful. 
"What would ofiend the eye in a good picture, the 
painter casts discreetly into shade ; " but Rogers would 
not only have done this, but have blotted out every- 
thing save beauties alone, of which, exclusively, no 
landscape, however fine, can be formed. 

Like Dry den, and very unlike the majority of poets, 
Rogers gradually went on, surpassing himself as he 



" ITALY." 61 

grew older; for his "Human Life" and his "Italy" 
are his best works. In the former we have, along with 
much of the same mellow colouring and delicacy of 
conception which distinguished "The Pleasures of 
Memory," the outpourings also of a richer and deeper 
vein of feeling — a contemplation more grounded on 
experiences. Even more than its precursor, " The 
Pleasures of Memory," it has all the high finish of a 
cabinet picture. " Italy," to our mind, however, is the 
freshest and finest of all the compositions of its author 
— the one most unequivocally his own ; and the one 
whose passages most frequently recur to mind, from 
their peculiar graces of style and language. Its blank 
verse is not that of Milton, or Thomson, or Akenside, 
or Cowper, or "Wordsworth. It is pitched on a less 
lofty key than any of these — nay, occasionally almost 
descends to a conversational tone, but without ever 
being commonplace in thought, or lax in diction. It is 
full of the easy elegance of the author's mind, and 
forms an admirable vehicle for those delightful glimpses 
of Ausonian life and natural scenery, which he has 
tinted with that exquisite grace inseparable from 
his pencil. Several of its descriptions, as those of 
Pfestum, of the Great St Bernard, and of Venice, 
are inimitable ; and its episode of Ginevra touches 
on a hidden spring, which finds a response in every 
heart. 

I know not which is more exquisite, her picture or 
her story. The first is a Sir Peter Lely in words : — 

" She sits, inclining forward as to speak, 
Her lips half open, and her finger up, 
As though she said, ' Beware ! ' Her vest of gold, 
Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to foot — 
An emerald stone in every golden clasp ; 
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster, 
A coronet of pearls. But then her face, 
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, 



52 "episode or ginevra." 

The overflowings of an innocent heart ; — 

It haunts me still, though many a year hath fled, 

Like some wild melody." 

Now for the latter — 

" She was an only child — her name Ginevra, — 
The joy, the pride of an indulgent father: 
And in her fifteenth year became a bride, 
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria, 
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love. 

Just as she looks there in her bridal dress, 
She was all gentleness, all gaiety, , 
Her pranks the favourite theme of every tongue. 
But now the day was come, the day, the hour ; 
Now frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time, 
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum ; 
And, in the lustre of her youth, she gave 
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco. 
Great was the joy ; but at the nuptial feast, 
When all sate down, the bride herself was wanting. 
Nor was she to be found ! Her father cried, 
' 'Tis but to make a trial of our love ! ' 
And filled his glass to all ; but his hand shook. 
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread. 
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco, 
Laughing, and looking back, and flying stni, 
Her ivory tooth imprinted on his finger. 
But now, alas ! she was not to be found ; 
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed. 
But that she was not ! 

Weary of his life, 
Francesco flew to Venice, and, embarking, 
Flung it away in battle with the Tvirks. 
Orsini lived ; and long might you have seen 
An old man wandering as ia quest of something — 
Something he could not find — he knew not what. 
When he was gone, the house remained awhile 
Silent and tenantless, then went to strangers. 
Full fifty years were past, and all forgotten, 
When on an idle day, a day of search. 



EOGERS' MINOR POEMS. 53 

'Mid the old lumber in the gallery, 

That mouldering chest was noticed ; and 'twas said, 

By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra, 

* Why not remove it from its lurking-place 1 ' 

'Twas done as soon as said ; but on the way 

It burst, it fell ; and lo ! a skeleton, 

With here and there a pearl, an emerald-stone, 

A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold. 

All else had perished — save a wedding-ring 

And a small seal, her mother's legacy. 

Engraven with a name, the name of both, 

' Ginevra.' 

There then had she found a grave ! 
Within that chest had she concealed herself, 
Fluttering with joy, the happiest of the happy ; 
When a spring-lock, that lay in ambush there, 
Fastened her down for ever !" 

Whatever portion of the writings of Samuel Rogers 
may die, this tale cannot. His minor poems are all 
elaborately graceful and elegant ; but, save in one or 
two instances, possess little originality, and never once 
rise into lyrical grandeur. The best are " The Alps at 
Daybreak," " To the Torso," the " Lines written in the 
Highlands of Scotland," and the " Verses in Westmin- 
ster Abbey." 

The reader of Rogers ever finds that lie is 'on secure 
ground, that his author is in earnest, and that his 
afflatus is the true inspiration. The feast spread for 
him has all the marks of cost and care ; it is the result 
of choice study, of nice observation, of fine feeling, of 
exquisite fancy, of consummate art ; and the exuber- 
ances of the mere bard are everywhere toned down by 
the graceful tact of the scholar. Among great or original 
minds Rogers scarcely claims a place — nay, his genius 
may not seldom be said to glow with something of a 
reflected light ; but, in this age of slovenly prolixity, 
where elaboration is held at a discount, and volume 



54 REV. W. L. BOWLES, 

after volume, sparkling with something good, is poured 
forth in its crudity, only to be sighed over and forgotten, 
I look upon his example of elegance and correctness as 
quite invaluable. 

Bowles was an inferior artist to Rogers, although 
taste and elegance are also the chief features of his 
poetry. His early reputation was founded on his 
sentimental and reflective verses ; and these may still 
be ranked among his happier efforts. Probably, from 
old associations, I have a sort of lurking fondness for 
his " Grave of Howard," his " Abba Thule," and " The 
Elegy at Matlock," which their intrinsic merits may 
not quite entitle them to ; but more certain I am that 
" St Michael's Mount" and " Coombe Ellen" are two 
descriptive poems of high merit, whether regarded as 
the genial outpourings of youthful enthusiasm, or as 
elegant and tasteful specimens of versification. The 
" Sonnets," through many years, however, were the 
sheet-anchors of Bowles's fame ; and fine though some 
of them must be admitted to be, it is yet difficult to 
account for the impression which assuredly — because 
we have it from spontaneous personal confession — they 
made on minds much more lofty and vigorous in 
imagination than his own. Coleridge had them by 
heart ; and not only made forty autograph copies of 
them for his particular friends, but declared himself 
"enthusiastically delighted and inspired by them:" 
while in the recently published " Life of Robert 
Southey," by his son Cutlibert, we find him also saying, 
in a letter to their author, that " there are three con- 
temporaries, the influence of whose poetry on my own 
I can distinctly trace — Sayers, yourself, and Savage 
Landor. I owe you something, therefore, on the score 
of gratitude." Bowles requires no higher credentials 
for the legitimacy of his mission ; for no uninspired 
poet ever inspired others. That the flames from a 
small, rude Indian wigwam may carry conflagration to 



CHARACTER OF BOWLES's POETRY. 55 

a whole district-embowering prairie, is quite another 
matter ; the kindling spark alone is wanted — and in 
poetry genius is that sole desiderated spark. Southey 
and Coleridge acknowledge having borrowed fire from 
Bowles to ignite their tinder — ergo, Bowles must have 
been a poet. 

The latter and more ambitious efforts of Lisle Bowles 
— for he wrote at least four long poems — could not be 
said to have been thoroughly, that is, eminently suc- 
cessful. In all, passages of tender sentiment and fine 
description abound ; but, on the whole, they were more 
the pumpings up, than the pourings out, of genius. 
His mind possessed more elegance than vigour ; w^as 
rather reflective than imaginative. He is deficient in 
variety ; and he ventured not, like Crabbe, to paint 
things exactly as he saw them ; hence there is a same- 
ness about his outlines that savours of mannerism. 
His familiar walk was amid the gentler affections of 
our nature ; but his tenderness seldom rises into passion ; 
or it is merely the anger of the dove, 

" Pecking the hand that hovers o'er its mate." 

The Attic taste of his scholarship seemed to trammel 
that enthusiasm, essential for the creation of high lyric 
poetry ; and in this he resembles Thomas Warton — to 
whom, in his descriptive sketches, as w^ell as in his 
chivalresque tendencies, he bore a greater resemblance 
than to any other author. 

The first of Bowles's larger poems, " The Spirit of 
Discovery by Sea" — which comprehends all navigators 
from Noah downwards — was a daring subject, but 
treated with distinguished ability ; and, taken as a whole, 
is perhaps the best. " The Missionary," founded on a 
romantic incident in South American history, is prin- 
cipally valuable from its many admirable pictures of 
that varied and gorgeous region. " The Grave of the 
Last Saxon," a historico-romantic poem, relating to the 



56 HIS LARGER PRODUCTIONS. 

times of William the Conqueror and the sons of Harold, 
is more ambitious in design, is pervaded throughout by 
a fine antique tone — for Bowles was somewhat of an 
antiquarian of the Sylvanus Urban school — and is full 
of chivalrous " renown and knightly worth." His last 
laborious effort was " Ban well Hill, or Days Departed" 
— principally to be regarded as a loco-descriptive poem, 
redolent of fine English scenery, which a Gainsborough 
might have painted ; and of rural manners, which in 
gentle beauty contrast brightly with the sterner and 
more rugged portraitures of Crabbe. The striking 
Cornish legend of " The Spectre and the Prayer-Book," 
originally published under the fictitious name of Dr 
Macleod, was afterwards incorporated with the work of 
which it now forms the conclusion. 

Sixty years ago — Eheu fug aces, Posthume, labuntur 
anni ! — many of the shorter productions of Bowles were 
great favourites with the young and the sentimental, 
ere supplanted by the more spirit-stirring lays of Scott 
and Byron. His "Villager's Verse-Book" had for its 
admirable object the connecting the most obvious 
images of country life with the earliest impressions of 
humanity and piety. Several of these little effusions 
are very beautiful, and are quite equal in poetical merit 
to the " Hymns for Childhood" by Mrs Hemans ; 
although it must be confessed that neither Bowles 
nor Mrs Hemans quite understood the mode of writing 
merely for children. Both are continually shooting be- 
yond the mark, and seem loth to sacrifice a good idea, 
simply because it is incompatible with the purpose in 
hand ; and they are consequently, in that department, 
much inferior in success alike to Mrs Barbauld in her 
" Hymns in Prose," and to Anne and Jane Taylor, in 
their appropriately titled " Hymns for Infant Minds." 

Bowles was deficient in the passion and imagination 
which command great things; but he was, notwith- 
standing, a true poet. He had a fine eye for the beautiful 



DURABILITY OP POETICAL REPUTATION. 57 

and the true ; and, although his enthusiasm was tem- 
pered, we never miss a cordial sympathy with what- 
ever is pure, noble, and generous — for his heart was in 
the right place. Writers of ephemeral reputation fall 
with the circumstances to which they owed their rise ; 
but no man who has been giving some measure of 
delight to thousands, through two or three generations 
— and Bowles has done so — can be altogetlier a decep- 
tion. Casual topics may insure present success ; but 
poetical fame is not, cannot be, founded on these, how- 
ever a few apparent exceptions may seem to favour 
such a supposition — as those of Butler, of Churchill, and 
of Anstey — for all these were true poets. Grand prin- 
ciples alone insure permanency. The human heart and 
its sympathies being the same from age to age, it re- 
quires only the "touch of nature to make all flesh kin;" 
but passing purposes are accomplished by passing means. 
Ere a century has elapsed, the gigantic reputation of 
Swift is dwarfed by that distance which extinguishes 
court ladies, ribanded senators, political clubs, and per- 
sonal squabbles about coin and currency ; and Dr 
Wolcot — the Peter Pindar whose dread satires are said 
to have caused his being pensioned off in the reign of 
George the Third — is now as utterly forgotten (although 
scarcely deservedly so, for he wrote a few good things 
in quite another and higher vein) as if he had flourished 
in the reign of Hardicanute. 

The following lines from " The Grave of Howard," 
sufficiently indicate Bowles's general manner : — 

" When o'er the sounding Euxine's stormy tides 
In hostile pomp the Turk's proud navy rides, 
Bent, on the frontiers of the Imperial Czar, 
To pour the tempest of vindictive war ; 
If onward to those shores they haply steer 
Where, Howard, thy cold dust reposes near, 
Whilst o'er the wave the silken pennants stream, 
And seen far off the golden crescents gleam, 



58 THE GRATE OF HOWAED. 

Amid the pomp of war, tlie swelling breast 
Shall feel a still unwonted awe impress'd, 
And the relenting Pagan turif aside 
To think — on yonder shore the Christian died ! 

But thou, Biiton ! doomed, perhaps, to roam 
An exile many a year, and far from home, 
If ever fortune thy lone footsteps leads 
To the wild Dnieper's banks and whispering reeds, 
O'er Howard's grave thou shalt impassion'd bend. 
As if to hold sad converse with a friend. 
AVhate'er thy fate upon this various scene. 
Where'er thy weary pilgrimage has been. 
There shalt thou pause, and shutting from thy heart 
Some vain regrets that oft unbidden start, 
Think upon him, to every lot resign' d. 
Who wept, who toil'd, who perish'd for mankind." 

In the famous Bowles, Campbell, and Byron contro- 
versy regarding the invariable principles of poetry, I 
have always felt convinced that Bowles had distinctly 
the better of his two more celebrated antagonists, both 
of whom were not only indifferent logicians, but were 
ever arguing directly in the teeth of their own prac- 
tice ; for what are "The Pleasures of Hope," "Gertrude 
of Wyoming," " O'Connor's Child,"— what the " Childe 
Harold," " The Corsair," " Manfred,"— but splendid il- 
lustrative examples of the tenets which Bowles upheld ? 
He maintained that images dravm from the sublime and 
beautiful in nature are more poetical than any drawn 
from art ; and that the passions and aspirations of man's 
heart belong to a higher class of associations than those 
derived from incidental and transient manners or modes 
of life ; — in short, that Pope's " Epistle of Eloise " was 
intrinsically loftier poetry than "The Rape of the 
Lock," Byron's " Prisoner of Chillon " than his " Eng- 
lish Bards," and Campbell's " Mariners of England " 
than his " Mobbiad." The battle against Bowles was 
maintained by his opponents shirking their main posi- 



BYRON AND BOWLES CONTROVERSY. 59 

tioiij and attacking him on the lower ground of his 
not having allotted due importance to poetic art, — that 
command which the poet ought to have over his mate- 
rials. This may or may not have been the case : at all 
events, it is only one of the subsidiary issues of the 
argument ; and it was simply by ingeniously evading 
the main topic of controversy, that Byron, Campbell, 
Roscoe, Gilchrist, and the host of pamphleteers whom 
they succeeded in calling into the field — by keeping up 
a sort of bush-fighting — brought matters at last to an 
ignoble truce. That Bowles was once or twice entrapped 
into unwary admissions, I admit ; but, on the whole, 
he showed himself a much more expert master of fence 
— a far abler, subtler, and more logical disputant than 
any of those who attempted to answer his arguments. 



LECTUEE II. 



The origin, progress, and tenets of the Lake School.— S. T. Coleridge, Robert 
Southey, Lloyd and Lovell.— The Lyrical Ballads.— WT\\\a.m. "Wordsworth 
as a reformer of our poetry ; his peculiar views ; his faults and excellencies ; 
extract from Goody Blake and Harry Gill ; Morning Sketch ,- from Peter 
Bell : Sonnet at Eilliecrankie ; and portion of Skating Scene from Prelude.— 
Coleridge as a man of genius ; his early magnificent promise. — The Ancient 
Mariner and Christabel ; specimen, Youth and Age. — Charles Lamb ; extract 
from Forest Scenery. — Thalaba, Madoc, Kehama, Roderick, and the Miscel- 
laneous Poetry of Southey : specimens. Boyhood of Thalaba ; Storm at Sea, 
from Madoc ; Love, from Kehama. — Autumn Sketch. — Southey's amazing 
industry ; his excellencies and defects. — Walter Savage Landor ; general 
character of his poetry. — The Scottish poets of the period, more especially 
•James Hogg and Allan Cunningham. — Extracts from Witch of Fife and 
Kilmeny .• Fragment. — Do Science and Poetry progress together ? 



We come now to make mention of one of the most bril- 
liant constellations of genius that ever illustrated our 
literature, whether we regard originality or variety. It 
consisted primarily of three great luminaries — Southey, 
Coleridge, and Wordsworth ; and of three lesser ones — 
Lamb, Lloyd, and Lovell. 

In 1794, Samuel Taylor Coleridge made his appear- 
ance as an author in his " Juvenile Poems," and in a 
drama on " The Fate of Robespierre ; " followed by a 
collection of verses, in conjunction with Charles Lloyd 
and Charles Lamb, wherein many indications of the 
future excellencies of the author of " Christabel " may 
be discovered. During the same year came forth 
another partnership volume, by Robert Southey and 
Robert Lovell, — shortly after which the latter died. 
Coleridge and Lamb had been schoolfellows at Christ 



PANTISOCRACY. 61 

Church Hospital ; where, even then, the former was a 
kind of prodigy — wonderful for his natural abilities, 
eccentric in his habits, simple to silliness. All these 
youths were enthusiastic — were united by reciprocity of 
taste, feeling, and sentiment — were optimists according 
to the sanguine fashion of the day ; and, while they 
deplored the evils of society, hopefully thought to put 
some new reforming spokes into the machinery, which 
were to make all things go smack and smooth. In 
short, without the smallest possible superfluity in 
friends, funds, or experience, they reckoned the regene- 
ration of the world a task of the easiest, and solaced 
each other with seeing golden visions, and dreaming 
Elysian dreams. Many little harassing difficulties — 
many tiny nibblings at the shoe-latchets of the mighty 
— taught them, nevertheless, that they were still deni- 
zens of this prosaic lower world, and that it was some- 
what necessary for them, whatever the Utopian fashion 
of their opinions might be, to conform to the usages of 
that society which they exhibited such a philanthropic 
anxiety to reclaim. Circumstances, like the Liliputian 
pegs of Gulliver, began to pin them down to stern reali- 
ties, more closely and securely than they had at all anti- 
cipated ; and, like a beautiful moral exhalation, the 
little Pantisocratical Society was soon fain to break up. 
Coleridge, who cultivated the deserts of Sahara, and 
continued dreaming to the end of life's chapter, went 
to reside at Nether Stowey, in Somersetshire ; at Alfox- 
den, two miles distant from which William Wordsworth 
had already located himself. He also had, previous to 
this, appeared as a poet in his " Evening Walk" and 
" Descriptive Sketches ;" and kindred feelings and pur- 
suits brought and bound the gifted youths together. 
They seemed to have each the most intense admiration 
for the other's abilities. Both were philosophers as 
well as poets : most of their leading ideas on literary 
points coincided ; and, as the first experimental fruits 



62 LYRICAL BALLADS. 

of a new system, which was to renovate and refreshen 
literature — a system which was to bring back poetry, 
both subjectively and objectively, to every day life, 
and which was to make its style and language those 
of common intercourse — the "Lyrical Ballads" made 
their appearance. The greater part of the volume 
was Wordsworth's ; but, with two or three other 
things less important, Coleridge contributed certainly 
the most striking poem in the collection — " The Ancient 
Mariner." 

The transition from fripperied Art to half-slipshod- 
drabbish Nature, and at one leap, was too much for 
the multitude ; so the primary results were anything 
but auspicious. Some laughed ; many marvelled ; 
most regarded the matter as a strange attempt at 
hoaxing the gullible. For several years little real 
notice was attracted by the ballads ; and the attend- 
ant sounds were less the whoop of triumph than the 
scoff of scorn. Nor, all things considered, was this 
much to be wondered at. Subjects which had been 
long scouted as utterly unfit for verse, were pitched 
upon as those really most worthy of poetical embel- 
lishment ; and from complicated theories and trite 
artificial diction, the young writers had flown away 
to the most bald topics and to the most colloquial 
platitudes. The pathetic was not only brought into 
contact with the ludicrous, but worked up with it into 
a compound of that doubtful species of nutriment which 
was neither fowl nor flesh ; and the reader felt often 
at a loss to know, whether he was called upon to lament 
with "Betty Foy," or to rejoice with her idiot son 
"Johnny." " Goody Blake and Harry Gill," with all 
its picturesqueness — for it is like a scene by Berghem — 
was equally a puzzler. " The Last of the Flock " verged 
on the silly ; while " Alice Fell," with her tattered red 
cloak, was palpably mediocre and worthless. Widely 
different, however, were the ballad of " Ruth," " Lucy 



wordswobth's peculiarities. 63 

Gray," "We are Seven," "Expostulation and Reply," 
"The Pet Lamb," "Michael," and "The Brothers"— 
compositions which, in their several ways, were never 
excelled in Wordsworth's after compositions. In these 
there was much gold, if not refined gold. There was a 
comprehensive spirit of humanity, a truthful delineation, 
a natural grandeur, a simplicity of feeling, which proved 
the true poet ; and subtler critics felt and acknowledged 
that the destiny of the author, for success or failure, lay 
entirely in the kind of web that he might subsequently 
choose to weave. 

I shall give first a short specimen of Wordsworth's 
original eccentricities. An old woman, stealing sticks, 
is seized and shaken by the farmer ; but she chanced 
to be a friend of Monk Lewis, consequently with a 
spice of necromancy about her ; so straightway showed 
him he had caught a tartar : — 

" She prayed, her withered hand uprearing. 
While Harry held her by the arm — 
'God ! who art never out of hearing, 
may he never more be warm ! ' 
The cold cold moon above her head, 
Thus on her knees did Goody pray : 
Young Hari-y heard what she had said, 
And icy cold he turned away. 

" He went complaining all the morrow 
That he was cold and very chill ; 
His face was gloom, his heart was sorrow, 
Alas ! that day for Harry Gill ! 
That day he wore a riding-coat, 
But not a whit the warmer he ; 
Another was on Thursday brought, 
And ere the Sabbath he had three. 

" * Twas all in vain, a useless matter, 
And blankets were about him pinn'd ; 
Yet still his jaws and teeth they chatter, 
Like a loose casement in the wind. 



64 RECEPTION OF " LYRICAL BALLADS." 

And Harry's flesh it fell away, 
And all who see him say, 'tis plain, 
That, live as long as live he may, 
He never will be warm again. 

" 'No word to any man he utters, 
A-bed or up, to young or old, 
But ever to himself he mutters, 
' Poor Harry Gill is very cold ! ' 
A-bed or up, by night or day, 
His teeth they chatter, chatter still. 
Now think, je farmers all, I pray. 
Of Goody Blake and Harry Gill." 

'Phe general voice of the public, as well as the leading 
organs of criticism, were decidedly, throughout several 
years, against the "Lyrical Ballads," which were 
regarded as literary eccentricities ; and so, in many 
points of view, they were ; but their excellencies, which 
were not so obvious, and which were caviare to the 
many, attracted by degrees a small knot of enthusiastic 
and enlightened admirers, among whom it is pleasant 
to know were John Wilson and Thomas De Quincey, 
both, at that time, young men pursuing their Oxford 
studies. Unknown to each other, they had written to 
Wordsworth, expressive of their admiration ; and his 
letters in reply were long cherished by either with 
affectionate regard. Curious it is that both should 
have remained to the present day among the first- 
class expositors of Wordsworth's excellencies. 

Coleridge's contributions to the " Lyrical Ballads " 
were at length withdrawn ; and, from time to time, 
poem after poem was added to the collection by Words- 
worth, all more or less remarkable for the peculiar 
merits or defects which characterised their predeces- 
sors ; until, in 1807, two other volumes of entirely 
new matter made their appearance, worked out on 
the same pattern, and equally defiant of existing pre- 



MOBNING SKETCH. 65 

judices, and cotemporary criticism. It was now clear 
that all advice had been quite thrown away, and that 
the author's system, and no other, whether right or 
wrong, was the one which was to be adhered to by 
him. There were here, as in the former collection, not 
only in the opinion of Mr Jeffrey, but by the confession 
of even Mr Southey himself, an extraordinary melange 
of the good, the bad, and the indifferent. We had the 
" Sister Emmelines," and " The Lesser Celandines," 
and " The Dancing Daffodils ;" the " Simon Lees," 
and " The Idle Shepherd Boys," all equally dubious 
in literary character, as the " Goodys" and " Harrys" 
and " Alices" of earlier times ; but then their almost 
deadweight was buoyed up by " The Hart Leap Well," 
" Resolution and Independence," " The Song at the 
Feast of Brougham Castle," and by that " gem of 
purest ray serene," the lines on " Revisiting Tintern 
Abbey," — which is by far the best epitome of Words- 
worth's poetical philosophy, and the most character- 
istic specimen of its excellencies, peculiarities, and 
defects. 

Having from the first volume of the " Ballads" 
picked out a glaring specimen of Wordsworth's pecu- 
liarities, it is but just to give from the second batch a 
short one of his peculiar beauties. It is a morning 
sketch : — 

" There was a roaring in the wind all night; 
The rain came heavily and fell in floods ; 
But now the sun is rising calm and bright ; 
The birds are singing in the distant woods ; 
Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods ; 
The jay makes aiaswer as the magpie chatters ; 
And all the air is filled with the pleasant noise of waters. 

" All things that love the sun are out of doors ; 
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth ; 
The grass is bright with rain-drops ; on the moors 
The hare is running races in her muth ; 
E 



66 Wordsworth's devotion to poetry. 

And with her feet she from the plashy earth 

Raises a raist, which, glittering in the sun, 

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run. 

'^ I was a traveller then upon the moor ; 
I saw the hare that raced about with joy ; 
I heard the woods and distant waters roar, 
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy : 
The pleasant season did my heart employ : 
My old remembrances went from me wholly, 
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy." 

Here we have not a syllable of redundancy. The 
scene is perfect in its picturesqueness and truth : we 
have combined in it the calm clearness of Calcott with 
the graphic vitality of Edwin Landseer. 

Early in youth Wordsworth had felt the poetical 
impulse ; and never, perhaps, in the whole range of 
literary history, from Homer downwards, did any 
individual, throughout the course of a long life, dedicate 
himself to poetry with a devotion so pure, so perfect, 
and so uninterrupted as he did. It was not his amuse- 
ment, his recreation, his mere pleasure — it was the 
main, the serious, the solemn business of his being. 
Everything was made subservient to it — his observation, 
his reading, his personal experiences. It was his 
morning, noon, and evening thought ; the object of his 
out-of-door rambles ; the subject of his in-door reflec- 
tions ; and, as an art, he studied it as severely as ever 
Canova did sculpture, or Michael Angelo painting. 

The grand aim of Wordsworth's life seemed con- 
centred in the composition of a philosophical poem, 
which was to contain " Views of Man, Kature, and 
Society ;" and, in intellectual preparation for this 
mighty task, he wrote a preliminary work, which 
might almost be considered autobiographical, as it con- 
tained a record of the origin, cultiyation, and progress 
of his own powers. This was " The Prelude," which 



WORDSWORTH'S GRAND AIMS. 67 

was reserved for posthumous publication, although 
several of its better bits had, from time to time, found 
a place in the collected editions of his works. The 
greater poem, to be entitled " The Recluse," as having 
for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of 
a poet living in retirement, was to consist of three parts, 
of which " The Excursion" — the only one which ever 
saw the light — was the second. This (" The Excursion") 
was intended to be more dramatic than the first and 
third divisions, which were to be chiefly meditative. 
When completed, Wordsworth intended that the two 
works — " The Prelude" and " The Recluse" — should 
have that kind of relation to each other that the ante- 
chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. His love of 
system, fantastic as this may seem, did not stop evea 
there ; for he arranged his minor poems so, that they 
might have the same connection with this Gothic 
church as the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral 
recesses ordinarily included in such edifices. For many 
of them this must have been a Procrustes bed ; and a 
fitting subdivision for " Peter Bell" and " The Waggoner" 
must have proved not a little puzzling, unless he thrust 
them at once into the penance-hole ! 

The resolute determination and the self-devotion of 
Wordsworth were morally grand in themselves, and led 
to grand results — the complete restoration of our 
poetical literature to truth and nature ; yet his dogged 
self-will not only kept him from removing from his 
writings, but literally blinded him to those blots and 
blemishes in them, which the most devoted of his 
admirers could not only not help perceiving, but de- 
plored. Coleridge was framed of different materials : if 
the one was iron, the other was wax, and took each 
plastic bend of the moment. Nothing, indeed, could be 
more uncertain or mercurial, for his very life seemed 
spasmodic ; but he had gigantic powers ; so, when he 
roused him to the combat, in one day he did a giant's 



b» S. T. COLERIDGE. 

work — and for what? that, for the next month, he 
might have " a little more sleep, a little more slumber, 
a little more folding of the hands to sleep." Grand 
schemes were continually haunting his imagination ; 
but everything ended in fragment, or in mere intention ; 
and it is much to be doubted if Coleridge would not 
have occupied quite as high a place as he now does in 
literature — and that is deservedly a high one — had he, 
ere even this century commenced, broken his wand, 
like Prosper©. His inspiration — for, if ever a man 
seemed inspired, it was Coleridge — was at its fullest and 
highest from 1795 to 1797 ; that was, during the whole 
time of his residence at Nether Stowey. It was there 
and then that he composed his " Christabel," his 
" Ancient Mariner," his " Genevieve," his " Kubla 
Khan," his " Tears in Solitude," his " Religious Musings," 
his " Nightingales," his " Ode to the Departing Year," 
and his tragedy of " Remorse" — in truth, nine-tenths 
of all the things by which his name has been immor- 
talised ; although, in mere bulk, these form but an 
inconsiderable item in relation to what he afterwards 
wrote, talked, dogmatised, and published. His system 
of poetical faith was, as I have said, akin to that of 
"Wordsworth, of whose poems he gives a characteristic 
analysis in his " Biographia Literaria." His claims for 
his friend are these, — 

" First, An austere purity of language, both gramma- 
tically and logically ; in short, a perfect appropriateness 
of the words to the meaning. Secondly ^ A corresponding 
weight and sanity of the thoughts and sentiments, won 
not from books but from the poet's own meditations. 
They are fresh^ and have the dew upon them. Even 
throughout his smaller poems, there is not one which is 
not rendered valuable by some just and original reflec- 
tion. Thirdly, The sinewy strength and originality of 
single lines and paragraphs, the frequent curiosa felicitas 
of its diction. Fourthly, The perfect truth of nature in 



Wordsworth's system. 69 

his images and descriptions, as taken immediately from 
nature, and proving a long and genial intimacy with 
the very spirit which gives a physiognomic expression 
to all the works of nature. Fifthly, A meditative 
pathos, a union of deep and subtle thought, with sensi- 
bility ; a sympathy with man as man ; the sympathy, 
indeed, of a contemplator from whose view no difference 
of rank conceals the sameness of the nature ; no injuries 
of wind, or weather, or soil, or even of ignorance, wholly 
disguise the human face divine. Last, and pre-eminently, 
I challenge for this poet the gift of imagination in the 
highest and strictest sense of the word. In the play of 
fancy, Wordsworth, to my feelings, is always graceful, 
and sometimes recondite. The likeness is occasionally 
too strange, or demands too peculiar a point of view, or 
is such as appears the creature of predetermined research, 
rather than spontaneous presentation. Indeed, his 
fancy seldom displays itself as mere and unmodified 
fancy. But in imaginative power he stands nearest of 
all modern writers to Shakespeare and Milton ; and yet 
in a mind perfectly unborrowed and his own. To 
employ his owm words, which are at once an instance 
and an illustration, he does, indeed, to all thoughts and 
to all objects, 

* add the gleam. 
The light that never was on sea or land, 
The consecration and the poet's dream.'" 

"With much, nay, with almost all of this, I am quite 
disposed to agree ; but then it applies only to Words- 
worth's better manner, and to his most successful com- 
positions. His peculiar faults, which are left untouched 
by Coleridge, are quite as obvious as his peculiar 
beauties. Alike in his later as in his earlier poems, 
Wordsworth is not seldom verbose and exaggerated, to 
a degree that verges on bombast and Ancient Pistol ; 
occasionally simple to a silliness, that reminds of Shallow 



/U ITS PECULIARITIES AND DEFECTS. 

and Slender. Add to this a perverse singularity in his 
views, alike in depicting scenery and action — views 
that are not such as necessarily or naturally obtrude 
themselves, and have the same analogy to those gene- 
rally adopted, as Goodwin Sands to Tenterden steeple. 
These — the obvious — are left out, to give place to some 
singular or eccentric phrase, which rarely exhibits 
itself. As in Turner's later pictures — and at times, 
certainly, with something of the same magical effect — 
we have often colouring almost without outline ; also 
speculation, without any distinct or definite basis — 
profound philosophical deductions from utter inanities. 
In short, Wordsworth's conclusions are to his reasons 
frequently much in the ratio of Sir John FalstafTs bread 
to his sack ; and character, instead of being delineated 
by action, is generally merely indicated by abstract 
idiosyncrasy, or some peculiar personal eccentricity — 
as in the " Boy of Windermere," who whooped to the 
owls, or in " Andrew Jones," with his drum. Hence, 
also, it is that the great bulk of Wordsworth's writings 
is sadly deficient — when we measure him by the stan- 
dards of Shakespeare, and Burns, and Byron, and Scott 
— of human interest ; and that he is relished by the 
moiety, solely from the excellencies of select pieces or 
passages — with some it may be ten, and with others 
twenty or thirty, which, in spite of themselves, cling to 
their memories as the mitssel does to the rock, or the 
old man of the sea to the back of Sinbad the Sailor. 
With an ear for blank verse finer, perhaps, than any 
since the days of Milton, or perhaps of Akenside, who 
was another great master, he yet passes off whole pages 
of measured prose as such, " flat, stale, unprofitable," 
utterly valueless in matter and manner, and unredeemed 
by merit of any kind — a mystery perfectly inscrutable, 
when we find these in juxtaposition with others which 
even the author of "Paradise Lost" might have been 
pardoned for coveting. To these aberrations of fancy 



"the excursion" and "peelude." 71 

and intellect Wordsworth seems to have been himself 
wholly blind ; for they are equally obtrusive in " The 
Prelude," vi'hich lay in MS. beside him for half a 
century, read and re-read, and over and over again 
revised and altered — as in " The Excursion" itself ; and 
the same may be said of passages " in number number- 
less" throughout his minor poems, even when he was 
subjected to the fetters of rhyme. 

Wordsworth planned on a magnificent scale. He 
would not have a Grecian temple like the Parthenon, 
or even a St Peter's, like that of Rome — his ideas 
expanded to a Pyramid of Cheops, a Stonehenge, or a 
Cave of Elephanta. " The wonderful, the wild," he 
despised ; he clung alone to the vast. His foundations 
were gigantic in extent ; and, by a mere man's labour, 
a corresponding superstructure could only be partially 
reared. He wrote by at least a half too much ; and yet 
his poetical edifice must remain for ever a fragment. Of 
Cowper's " Task," or of Thomson's " Seasons/' no reader 
would willingly part with a single entire pai'agraph ; 
it would be like taking a stone out of a completed 
building. Not so with "The Excursion," or "The 
Prelude ; " for large portions of either might be ex- 
punged with advantage, as mere abnormal excrescences 
on these otherwise grand productions. No really great 
poet resembles Wordsworth in tedious prolixity, save 
Spenser. In their happier moods, they each flash upon 
us with the crimson light of setting suns, or with " the 
innocent brightness of the new-born day ;" but withal — 
and with reverence for their manifold excellencies be it 
spoken — they are not unfrequently garrulous, spin long 
yarns, and consequently must submit to be often read 
only in extract by the less enthusiastic. 

Yet with all his exaggeration of tone, cumbrous 
machinery, over-minuteness of detail, occasional trite 
baldness, and disregard of proportion in the relations of 
objects — his perverse blending of the little with the 



72 WORDSWORTH AND MILTON. 

great, and his not seldom mistaking the simply silly for 
the severely simple — Wordsworth is " a prevailing poet," 
and must ever be regarded as a great one, for his high 
and manifold merits. Next to Scott, who stands alone 
and above all, and equal at least to Byron, Wilson, and 
Coleridge, he was the most original-minded man of his 
age. He had no prototype, unless he seems to have been 
foreshadowed by Milton ; but rich as each might be in 
elementary principles and requisites, the materials from 
which they chose to work were quite different. The 
mind of him who likened himself in his darkness to 

" blind Thamyris, and blind Meonides, 
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old " — 

was a treasury overflowing with the gems and gold of 
the past, riches garnered from east and west, and from 
either pole ; from the lands and languages of the 
Hebrew, the Assyrian, the Greek, the Roman, and the 
Italian ; from the regions sparkling with barbaric pearl 
and gold, to where 

" Chineses drive their cany waggons light ; " 

from Tartarian wilds, where the fabled Arimaspian 
keeps watch over buried treasures, to Norwegian hills, 
where bourgeon the giant pines, 

" Fit for the mast of some great Ammiral." 

Not so with Wordsworth ; he was scholastic only in his 
style ; and to many he may well seem to have founded 
poetry itself, and to have no predecessor, so faint and 
few are his allusions to those who have flourished and 
gone before him. His similes seldom refer to the beings 
or things of the chronicled past ; he draws them from 
nature, animate or inanimate, and they are generally 
the results of personal observation ; 

" From the bai'e trees, the mountains bare, 
And grass in the green field." 



WORDSWORTH'S PICTURES 73 

A horse, outworn by the chase, is said to be " weak as a 
lamb the moment it is yeaned ; " and an old man, bent 
over his staff, is likened to " a stone couched on the top 
of some bald eminence." The region amid which the 
summer, the autumn, and the winter of Wordsworth's 
life was passed, seemed to have impressed his mind 
with an almost superstitious dread of the collective 
power of matter ; it weighed upon him, "an importu- 
nate and heavy load ; " and he looked with a reverential 
fear on the forms of nature — the rugged precipice, the 
gloomy cavern, the green pastoral hill, the ripply lake, 
the still, dark tarn, nay, even on the moss-covered 
boulder-stones, which are older in their associations 
than the dawn of art, and which, mayhap, have lain 
on the same spot, untouched and unremarked, since the 
commencement of time. "The moving accident was 
not his trade," as he himself tells us ; it was 

" To pipe a simple song to thinking hearts." 

Everything was seen through the medium of an imagi- 
nation which, retaining the outline, imparted its own 
peculiar colouring to the filling up ; and in reference to 
this point, Mr Hazlitt has strikingly remarked, that 
"his poems bear a distant resemblance to some of 
Rembrandt's landscapes, who, more than any other 
painter, created the medium through which he saw 
nature — and out of the stump of an old tree, a break in 
the sky, and a bit of water, could produce an effect 
almost miraculous." 

If such Wordsworth's landscapes, so his characters. 
Whatever relation they may bear to his communings 
with other minds, they are ever, in part at least, drawn 
from himself. He groups these from their first elements ; 
and, in giving the product, shows the growth of the 
virtues and the vices from their original seeds. Popular 
adventures, picturesque situations, and startling catas- 
trophes, he holds far from him — sympathising alone 



74 AND PORTRAITS. 

with feeling in its simplest forms, as it biil)bles out from 
the great fountain-head of humanity. Hence it is that 
he seems as much pleased with the small as with the 
great ; with the daisy as with the star ; with the sleep- 
ing tarn as with the heaving ocean ; with " the fairy 
flower as with the giant tree;" and hence it is, also, 
that his drawings have a Chinese character about them — 
the remote and the near being equally brought forward, 
in defiance of perspective — as to the man lying horizon- 
tally on the grass each blade seems a spear, and the 
circling wild-bee is confounded with the swallow in the 
remoter sky. Wordsworth attempted tragedy, but it 
was only in his youth, ere he had rightly measured his 
powers ; and, notwithstanding the recommendations of 
Coleridge, Lamb, and other friends, whose early recollec- 
tions of the MS. " Borderers" seem to have blinded their 
critical sagacity, he ought not to have published it. 
It contains a few fine imaginative touches and passages, 
but is utterly destitute of dramatic interest, and melts 
from the memory like a snow-wreath from the vernal 
hill-side. Dramatically regarded, the same may be said 
of the colloquies between the Recluse, the Pastor, and 
the Pedlar in " The Excursion." Each talks according 
to a given cue ; but William Wordsworth is the mouth- 
piece through which they all speak. His genius was 
essentially didactic, and, although he might vary his 
mode, he found it impossible to go out of himself. His 
whole works are the history of his own individual 
mind ; his poems are made up of analyses of his own 
thoughts, and a pervading love of nature. In him we 
have more of the internal power of poetry, with less of 
the external show, than in any other writer, save per- 
haps Dante. He does not deal in picturesque panorama, 
like Scott ; nor in the dark and daring of sentiment, 
like Byron ; nor in minutely circumstantial etching, 
like Crabbe ; nor in gorgeous emblazonry, like Moore. 
He never groups for effect : his subjects are the simple, 



WORDSWORTH S LATER POEMS. 75 

the single, and often the apparently barren — till they 
are clothed Avith the drapery of his reflective imagina- 
tion. All things are thus as potter's clay in his hands : 
he despotically exalts the humble, and gives an impor- 
tance to the insignificant, till the tattered wandering 
beggar beams forth in his immortal attributes a lord of 
creation — till the cuckoo is no longer bird, but " a 
wandering voice" — till the inky tarn imbibes and is 
coloured by the hues of heaven — and till from the mean- 
est flower that blows are extracted " thoughts that do 
often lie too deep for tears." 

The first great and most characteristic section of 
Wordsworth's poems, those written in strict conformity 
with his original system, may be said to contain the 
philosophy of pastoral life — of man as an aboriginal 
creature, dissociated, in a large measure, from the great 
framework of society ; and taken all in all, these are 
his best works, and have been alike the most abused 
and the most admired. Wayward alike in selection of 
subjects, and in mode of handling many of these, still 
these lyrics are remembered — w^hetherfor good or evil — 
the only sure test of power ; and on them, along with 
select passages from his longer, more ambitious poems, 
his name will rest — and, I doubt not, most securely. 
His middle-life writings are more composite in charac- 
ter, and have either a dash of the romantic, as in "The 
White Doe of Rylstone;" or of the classical, as in 
"Laodamia" and "Dion." His last compositions are 
less striking. They exhibit the same artistic skill, the 
same mastery of the "English undefiled," the same 
majestic repose and high love of sentiment ; but the 
sharp angles of originality have been worn oflT, or rubbed 
down ; they are more diluted and dilated — are the milk 
without the cream ; read harmoniously, but leave only 
a vague indefinite impression on the reader's mind. I 
allude more especially to the " Yarrow Revisited ; " 
the " Ecclesiastical Sonnets : " the " Sonnets on the 



76 "the prelude." 

Punishment of Death," and the miscellanies published 
along with them. 

Whatever may be thought of " The Excursion " as a 
whole — and many regard it as heavy, " wallowing, 
unwieldy, enormous," and unfinished — it abounds with 
sentimental, reflective, imaginative, and descriptive 
passages of the very highest order of excellence. " The 
Prelude" stands much on the same level ; but it is as 
spring to summer — as youth to manhood ; and its faults 
— those of diffuseness, inequality, and incompleteness — 
are identical. I doubt much whether "The Prelude" 
has added at all to the already high reputation of 
"Wordsworth. It is an autobiographical record of the 
remembered feelings and incidents of his infancy, boy- 
hood, and adolescence ; of his experiences at Cambridge, 
at London, and at Paris ; and of his convictions regard- 
ing the causes and consequences of the first, and, par 
excellence, the French Revolution — whose ultimate 
failure he mourns with unfeigned and undisguised 
regret, " The Prelude" will be remembered, however, 
less from its philosophical disquisitions — which for the 
most part are, as I have said, vague and hazy — than from 
the beauty and exquisite diction of some of the descriptive 
passages. These are comparable to anything within the 
compass of English blank-verse composition ; and are 
fresh interpretations of Nature, passing directly from 
the intellect and imagination of the poet into the reader's 
memory, where they remain imprinted and imperish- 
able. I refer especially to the description of the Black 
Mount rising from the water, as seen by the solitary 
rower in his boat ; and which, by the power of phantasy, 
seemed to stride through the twilight after him, " with 
mountainous overwhelming ;" — to the poet's vision, by 
the cave on the sea-shore, of the Arab and his camel, 
and his book, and the ever-rising, ever-pursuing flood of 
waters ; — to his allusion to the sheplierd-life of antique 
classical times on the banks " of delicate Galesus," and 



" THE EXCURSION." 77 

of " rich Clitumnus ; " — and, above all, to the immortal 
skating scene, long ago given to the world by Coleridge 
in his " Friend ;" and which, along with the "Lines on 
revisiting Tintern Abbey," every true disciple of Words- 
worth must have had long ago delightedly by heart. 

The earlier books of "The Prelude" are closer and 
less diffuse in style than its later ones ; and throughout 
the whole composition, we have occasional passages 
strongly imitative of well-known portions of Milton's 
prose writings ; as also verbal music not seldom remind- 
ing us of favourite lines in preceding poets, which, 
from their beauty, must have continued haunting his 
memory. It has been asserted, that our greatest and 
best poets are remembered by ninety-nine out of every 
hundred, even of their admirers, only by extract. AYith 
Wordsworth this must ever be pre-eminently the case. 
Thinking of " The Excursion," we revert to the tale of 
Margaret, with its heart-crushing sorrow — to the mag- 
nificent sunrise scene, viewed from the solitary hill-top 
— to the churchyard among the mountains, with its 
sublimely moral lesson : — 

" So fades, so languishes, grows dim, and dies 
All that the world is proud of ; " 

to the highly wrought account of the origin of the Greek 
mythology — to the description of the manufactory by 
midnight — 

" a temple where is offered up 

To Gain, the master-idol of the realm, 

Perpetual sacrifice ; " 

and to the vivid picture of the ram on the rivers brink, 
with " its wreathed horns superb." " The White Doe of 
Rylstone" is imaged to us by the exquisite draught of the 
baronial hall by moonlight, with its clock pointing atuine, 
— the peacock roosted for the night in the broad ash-tree, 
and the waters dimpling into a thousand thousand 
little rings, caused " by the night-insects in their play." 



7a THE LYRICAL BALLADS." 

" The Lyrical ballads" may be said to have been only 
prelusive strains, which were to usher in higher and 
more earnest performers — preliminary task- works for 
Wordsworth's maturing powers. But, as I have said, 
these will remain his true anchor to fame — his " monu- 
mentum cere 'perennivb8 ;" for nowhere else is his origina- 
lity so distinctly felt, or his imaginative enthusiasm so 
peculiarly felicitous. His longer poems can never be 
popular in a wide sense, and the larger portion of them 
may sink or swim ; but, while sun and moon endure, 
the poetical temperament must ever kindle to at least a 
century of his sonnets, which are finer than any in the 
language — not excepting Milton's, Shakespeare's, or 
Warton's ; and to the music of '- Ruth," of " Loadamia," 
of "Yarrow Unvisited," of "Resolution and Indepen- 
dence," of " The Song of Brougham Castle," of " Hart 
Leap Well," of " Lucy Gray," of " The Founding of 
Bolton Priory," of " Michael," of " Tintern Abbey," 
and of the " Ode on the Intimations of Immortality." 
With such things to keep him for ever in hallowed 
remembrance, William Wordsworth requires no la- 
boured epitaph " over his honoured bones." 

Among Wordsworth's most directly pathetic poems 
are "The Brothers," "Michael," "We are Seven," 
"Lament of Mary Queen of Scots," "Extempore effusion 
upon the death of James Hogg," " The Two April 
Mornings," "To the Daisy," (stanzas in memory of his 
brother John,) and portions of " Peter Bell." The 
following stanzas are from the last mentioned, and 
commemorate some of the " compunctious visitings" of 
that peripatetic reprobate : — 

" But more than all, his heart is stung 

To think of one, almost a child ; 
A sweet and playftd Highland girl, 
As light and beauteous as a sqiiirrel. 

As beauteous and as wild ! 



EXTKACT FROM " PETER BELL." 

Her dwelling was a lonely house, 

A cottage in a heathy dell ; 
And she put on her gown of green, 
And left her mother at sixteen, 

And followed Peter Bell. 

But many good and pious thoughts 
Had she ; and, in the kirk to pray, 

Two long Scotch miles, through rain or snow, 

To kirk she had been used to go 
Twice every Sabbath-day. 

And when she followed Peter Bell, 

It was to lead an honest life ; 
For he, with tongue not used to falter, 
Had pledged his troth before the altar 

To love her as his wedded wife. 

A mother's hope is hers ; — but soon 

She drooped and pined like one forlorn ; 

From Scripture she a name did borrow : 

Benoni, or the child of sorrow. 
She called her babe unborn. 

For she had learned how Peter lived, 
And took it in most grievous part ; 
She to the very bone was worn. 
And, ere that little child was born, 
Died of a broken heart. 

Close by a brake of flowering furze, 
(Above it shivering aspens play), 
He sees an unsubstantial creature, 
His very self in form and feature, 

Not four yards from the broad highway. 

And stretched beneath the furze he sees 
The Highland girl — it is no other ; 

And hears her crying, as she cried 

The very moment that she died, 
* My mother ! —oh, my mother ! ' " 



80 "skating scene." 

Of the many exquisite sonuets of Wordsworth, none 
are more exquisite than those — " Upon the sight of a 
Beautiful Picture," " Written on Westminster Bridge," 
"To Sleep," "It was a beauteous Evening," "To 
Milton," " To Hofer," " Great men have been among 
us," and the following at " The Pass of ELilliecrankie,'' 
which glows with the spirit of Tjrtasus : — 

" Six thousand veterans, practised in war's game, 
Tried men, at Killiecrankie were arrayed 
Against an equal host that wore the plaid, 
Shepherds and herdsmen. Like a whirlwind came 
The Highlanders — the slaughter spread hke flame ; 
And Garry, thundering down his mountain-road, 
Was stopped, and could not breathe beneath the load 
Of the dead bodies. 'Twas a day of shame 
For them whom pi-ecept and the pedantry 
Of cold mechanic battle do enslave. 
Oh, for a single hour of that Dundee, 
Who, on that day, the word of onset gave ! 
Like conquest would the men of England see. 
And her foes find a hke inglorious grave." 

I do not know that I can give a finer or fairer 
specimen of Wordsworth's blank verse than in some 
lines from the skating scene in " The Prelude." The 
passage seems to have been alike a favourite one with 
the author and with Coleridge. After referring to his 
communings with nature even from childhood, the poet 
thus proceeds : — 

" Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 
With stinted kiudness. In November days, 
When vapours rolling down the valleys made 
A lonely scene more lonesome ; among woods 
At noon ; and, 'mid the calm of summer nights, 
When, by the margin of the trembUng lake, 
Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went 
In soHtude, such intercourse was mine : 
]Mine was it in the fields both day and night, 



I 



"skating scene." 81 

And by the waters, all the summer long. 

And in the frosty season, when the sun 

Was set, and, visible for many a mile 

The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed, 

I heeded not the summons : happy time 

It was indeed for all of us ; for me 

It was a time of rapture ! Clear and loud 

The village-clock tolled six. I wheeled about 

Proud and exulting, like an untired horse 

That cares not for its home. All shod with steel, 

We hissed along the polished ice, in games 

Confederate, imitative of the chase 

And woodland pleasures, — the resounding horn, 

The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. 

So through the darkness and the cold we flew, 

And not a voice was idle : with the din 

Smitten, the precipices rang aloud ; 

The leafless trees and every icy crag 

Tinkled like iron ; while far distant hills 

Into the tumult sent an alien sound 

Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars 

Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west 

The orange sky of evening died away. 

Not seldom from the uproar I retired 
Into a silent bay, or sportively 
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng. 
To cut across the reflex of a star ; 
Image that, flying still before me, gleamed 
Upon the glassy plain ; and oftentimes. 
When we had given our bodies to the wind. 
And all the shadowy banks on either side 
Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still 
The rapid line of motion, then at once 
Have I, reclining back upon my heels, 
Stopped short ; yet still the solitary clifis 
Wheeled by me— even as if the earth had rolled 
With visible motion her diurnal round ! 
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, 
Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched 
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea." 
F 



82 Wordsworth's critics. 

"Wordsworth's great merit lies in his having been a 
reformer, nay, in many respects a regenerator, of our 
national literature ; and in proof of this we have only 
to turn back to that literature as he found and as he left 
it — in his having again directed our eyes to the majesty 
of nature — in his having disdainfully trampled on the 
trammels of conventional criticism, and led us back to 
"the pure well of English undefiled." Approximating 
to the Holy Scriptures themselves, his writings have a 
simplicity of thought, and a singleness of purpose, which 
we vainly look for elsewhere ; and, after perusing a 
fashionable clever trumpery work of the day, redolent 
of the scented vices and quibbling artifices of society, we 
turn to the pictures and moralisings of Wordsworth, like 
the " captive long in city pent," to the green woods and 
the blue skies, to the waterfalls and to the mountains, to 
the scenes of primitive bliss and patriarchal simplicity. 

I have thus given my impressions of the excellencies 
and the defects of "^^ords worth's poetry — very imper- 
fectly, I am quite aware — but, I trust, un presumptuously. 
From 1798 until 1818, when Professor Wilson flashed 
on it the light of his critical genius, it might be said to 
have remained a book sealed — to whose cipher there 
was no key. To him, therefore, the world in a great 
measure owes the sesame to the occult treasure, and 
Wordsworth the happiness of knowing, in his declining 
years, that he had not over-estimated his powers — that 
his name was enrolled among the immortals. The 
subject has, since that time, been one most prolific of 
discussion in our cotemporary literary annals, and has 
been ably handled by Jeffrey, by Gilford, by Southey, 
by Lockhart, by Hazlitt, by Savage Landor, by Sterling, 
by De Quincey, and fifty other able pens ; yet, I make 
bold to say, by no one with the same true knowledge 
of the subject — with the same critical depth and delicacy 
of tact — or with the same comprehensive grasp, as by 
Wordsworth's best friend — the illustrious President of 



WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE CONTRASTED. 83 

this Institution — who, when every hand was lifted 
against the Recluse of the Lake, stood forward daunt- 
lessly, although alone, as his uncompromising champion, 
nor withdrew his foot from the barras line until he had 
heralded Wordsworth's fame " to every clime the sun's 
bright circle warms." 

We must now return to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
who, in almost every respect save genius, was the reverse 
of Wordsworth. The latter steadfastly pursued his 
purposes, and with a coolness of determination formed 
his plans and worked them out, scorning the obstacles 
before him ; or dauntlessly grappling with them, perse- 
vering through good and bad report, until he overcame 
them. Neglect, ridicule, obloquy, disparagement, had 
no modifying, no controlling power over him. Strong 
in what he believed to be right, he either stood unmoved 
amid the hurtling storm, until its fury passed over him, 
or stoically trod on through the briers and thorns of 
disappointment. Not so his equal, and probably, at 
one time, superior in genius — Coleridge — who started 
in the race like a Flying Childers, and yet, infirm of 
purpose, drew up ere the race was half run. Take 
Coleridge at thirty, and no poet of any age or country 
had done what he had ; while, at the same time, those 
who knew him best felt that these things were but as 
the " morning giving promise of a glorious day." All 
concur in declaring that his published writings at that 
period — original, and wild, and wonderful as they 
might seem — conveyed no adequate idea of his capa- 
bilities, of the periscopic knowledge and gigantic facul- 
ties of the man. By that time he had indited "The 
Friend" — eloquent, rambling, discursive, full of frag- 
mental magnificence, of high-sounding promises, of 
transcendental metaphysics, and of " elaborate passages 
that led to nothing." From " The Monody on Chatter- 
ton," written at seventeen — and a portion of which I 
had the melancholy pleasure, when seated by his bedside 



84 "the ancient maeinere." 

at Hampstead, of hearing him recite, in those tones 
delicate, yet deep, and "long drawn out," which can 
never be forgotten — from that elegy to his " Christabel" 
and" Ancient Mariner," his " Genevieve " and " Kubla 
Khan " — his career had been one of triumphant pro- 
gression — the promise of what might have led to 
another Shakespeare or Milton ; although a grown-up 
Coleridge must have been a tertium quid — a something, 
if equal to, yet very different from either. This was 
not to be. The seeming daybreak turned out to be but 
an aurora horealis. Titanic in its dimensions, his 
statue was to prove only a Torso. 

"We have here to regard Coleridge simply as a poet, 
not as the scholar, the philosopher, the politician, the 
translator, the essayist, or general prose writer. Leading 
off his verse stands " The Ancient Marinere " — probably 
the most characteristic manifestation of his powers — 
and one of the strongest and wildest sallies of pure 
imagination anywhere to be found, whether in reference 
to machinery or manner. It is a unique performance, 
reminding us of nothing else. "We cannot idealise any- 
thing relating to earth so utterly unworldly as it is — so 
far removed beyond the boundary of common associa- 
tions. "The Lenora," "The Wild Huntsman," and 
the tower scene in " The Robbers," are all inferior to 
it — are tame in comparison ; as are the demonologies 
of Godwin, Maturin, Lewis, Byron, and Shelley. The 
supernaturalisms of all these seem only touched with 
magic; "The Ancient Marinere" is saturated with it. 
His figure is " long, and lank, and lean, as is the ribbed 
sea-sand ; " he is himself under a spell, and has strange 
power of speech ; he wanders from land to land invo- 
luntarily ; and in his glittering eye abides a snaky 
fascination, which compels even the abhorrent to stand 
still and listen. His tale is now of stormy seas, 

** Where ice mast-high came floating by, 
As green as emerald ; " 



" GENEVIEVE." 85 

and anon of tropic regions, where, 

" All in a hot and copper sky, 
The burning sun at noon, 
Right up above the mast did stand, 
No bigger than the moon ; " 

turning the stagnant waters of ocean into snakes, " blue, 
glossy green, and velvet black," which " coiled and 
swam in their tracks of golden fire ;" while the crew 
remained as 

" in a painted ship, 

Upon a painted ocean." 

The movements of the verse are quite in accordance 
with the scenes and sounds described — " all carved out 
of the carver's brain," in a trance of imagination. 

Next to this, " but oh, how different !" is the " Intro- 
duction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie." It breathes 
the very soul of harmony, and is bathed " in the purple 
light of love." Nothing can be conceived more softly 
warm, more delicately, more deliciously beautiful. The 
time is when 

" The moonshine stealing o'er the scene, 
Has blended with the tints of eve ; " 

and with the two lovers before us, we are made to feel, 
not only that 

" All thoughts, all passions, all delights. 
Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
Are but the ministers of Love, 
And feed his sacred flame ; " 

but that it is even nursed by 

« hopes, and fears, that kindle hope, 

An undistinguishable throng,' 

And gentle wishes long subdued — 

Subdued, and cherished long." 

Not less necromantic were the warp and woof of that 



86 " CHRISTABEL." 

loom in which Coleridge wove the web of " Christabel." 
In that tale, the spiritual and material are so exquisitely 
blended that it is difficult to know where they run 
into each other. The rhythm consists of a notation of 
accents, not of syllables — well according with the 
grotesque imagery, the wild situations, and the frag- 
mental abruptness of the legend. " Christabel" is said 
to have been the key-note on which Sir Walter Scott 
pitched his "Lay of the Last Minstrel;" indeed, he 
himself tells us as much, and that its strange music was 
ever murmuring in his ears ; and its publication, after 
having lain twenty summers in MS. — nearly thrice the 
Horatian term of probation — was pressed upon its 
author by Lord Byron, who, in his notes to " The Siege 
of Corinth," rapturously writes of it as " that singularly 
wild, and original, and beautiful poem." The frame- 
work is Gothic ; and the incidents, both natural and 
supernatural, are in admirable keeping. The lady — 
"beautiful exceedingly" — has her mystic character 
brought out by touches the most delicately fine and 
discriminative, — her faltering at the crossing the hospi- 
table threshold — her dread and inability of prayer — 
the moaning of the old watch-dog in his sleep — the 
flickering of the half-dead embers, as she crosses the 
hall — and the swooning under the lamp " fastened to 
an angel's feet." And, amid this twilight mysticism, 
we have occasional gushes of glowing human tenderness, 
such as the following : — 

" Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth ; 
And Constancy lives in realms above ; 
And life is thorny, and youth is vain ; 
And to be wroth with one we love, 
Doth work like madness in the brain. 
And thus it chanced, as I divine, 
With Roland and Sir Leoline." 

As a man of genius, Coleridge appeared to have eaten of 



Coleridge's imputed plagiarisms. 87 

mandragora, or of " the insane root that takes the reason 
prisoner." His studies lay not in classical sunshine, but 
in the twilight of monastic speculation, and of Gothic 
romance. He voyaged not with Cook or Anson, but 
with Shelvocke and Davis — " ancient marineres ; " his 
natural history was not that of Buffon and Cuvier, but 
of Pontopiddau and Saxo-Grammaticus ; his alchemy 
not that of Black and Davy, but of Roger Bacon and 
Albertus Magnus ; his philosophy not that of Reid or 
Paley, but of Thomas Aquinas and Jacob Behmen. 
He would not keep the high-road if he could find a 
by-path ; and he thrust aside the obvious and true, 
to clutch at the quaint and the curious. In short, in 
defiance of the jeweller's estimate, he would have pre- 
ferred a moonstone, simply because it had fallen down 
from another sphere, to the richest diamond ever dug 
from the mines of Golconda. 

It has been imputed to Coleridge, that, notwithstand- 
ing the multifarious riches of his own mind, he was 
fond of borrowing ideas from others. Nor was this 
without foundation ; and it was wrong. But after all, 
and deducting every item that has been claimed for 
others, enough, and more than enough, remains to 
leave his high literary status beyond challenge. That 
he took — and, in that instance, why not 1 — the germinal 
idea of the " Ancient Mariner" from that passage of 
Shelvocke in " Purchas's Pilgrims," which narrates the 
circumstance of foul weather having followed the kill- 
ing of an albatross, is likely, for we find the incident 
there ; but, then, who could have made of it what he 
has done? The same may be said of his imputed 
plagiarisms from the philosophy of Schelling, from 
whom he took what certainly " not enriched him" or 
others ; and of his obligations to the poetry of Count 
Stolberg, and Frederica Brun. That his sublime, his 
magnificent Miltonic " Hymn before Sunrise in the 
Vale of Chamouni," was engrafted on some verses by 



88 "youth and age," 

the lady, there can be little doubt, for no such paral- 
lelisms ever accidentally occurred. Yet, after all, he 
has taken no more than the starting-point ; the whole 
of the glowing and glorious pouring forth of the heart 
and spirit, which follows, appertaining exclusively to 
the English poet. " The Remorse" and " Zapolja" do 
not fall to be considered here (the last is scarcely worthy 
of his fame) ; nor do his translations from Schiller, 
which are first-rate. Coleridge wanted the art of ar- 
ranging and combining his materials, or could not 
screw up the courage necessary for such a task. The 
finest of his minor compositions are " Kubla Khan," 
" The Pains of Sleep," " Youth and Age," " The Chapel 
of William Tell," and " The Wanderings of Cain," an 
impassioned prose poem. Many think that Coleridge 
did not fulfil his destiny. In this I can scarcely agree. 
He might have done many more things, but scarcely any 
mightier ; and, from what he has left, the most remote 
posterity will be entitled to say — '•' ex pede Herculemr 
The following little poem combines in itself many of 
the distinctive characteristics of its author's genius, 
and seems to me to be nearly perfect in its touchingly 
simple and serene beauty : — 

" Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, 
Where Hope clung feeding, like a bee — 
Both were mine ! Life went a- Maying 
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy, 

When I was young ! 
When I was young 1 Ah woeful icfien ! 
Ah for the change 'twixt now and then ! 
This breathing house not built with hands. 
This body that does me grievous wrong. 
O'er airy cliffs and glittering sands 
How lightly then it flashed along ! — 
Like those trim skiffs, unknown of yore 
On winding lakes and rivers wide, 
That ask no aid of sail or oar, 
That fear no spite of wind or tide. 



LLOTD AND LAMB. 89 

Nauglit cared this body for wind or weather 
When youth and I lived in't together. 

Flowers are lovely ; Love is flower-like ; 
Friendship is a sheltering tree ; 
the joys that came down shower-like, 
Of Friendship, Love, and Liberty, 

Ei-e I was old ! 
Ere I was old ? Ah woeful ere ! 
Which tells me Youth's no longer here ! 

Youth ! for years so many and sweet, 
'Tis known that thou and I were one ; 
I'll think it but a fond deceit — 

It cannot be that thou art gone ; 
Thy vesper-bell hath not yet toll'd, 
And thou wert aye a masquer bold ; 
What strange disguise hast now put on. 
To make believe that thou art gone 1 

1 see these locks in silvery slips. 
This drooping gait, this altered size ; 
But spring-tide blossoms on thy lips, 
And tears take sunshine from thine eyes ! 
Life is but thought ; so think I will 
That Youth and I are housemates still." 

Of Coleridge's original coadjutors, Lloyd and Lamb, 
only a ie\Y words require to be said. The former had 
considerable vigour and originality, but was involved 
and deficient in directness. In his " Nugse Canorse" 
there were many striking poems and passages ; but the 
harshness and ruggedness of his versification for ever 
debarred him from being a popular favourite. He is 
best remembered by his faithful and spirited transla- 
tion of " The Tragedies of Alfieri." 

Charles Lamb was a true poet, but not a great one. 
His genius was peculiar and wayward ; and his mind 
seemed so impregnated with the dramatists preceding or 
CO temporary with Shakespeare — Mario we, Webster, Ford, 
Shirley, Marston, Massinger, and their compeers — that 
he could not help imitating their trains of thought. 



90 ROBERT SOUTHEY. 

Yet he struck out a few exquisite things — sparks from 
true genius, which can never be extinguished ; as " The 
Old Familiar Faces/' « To Hester," '' The Virgin of the 
Rocks," and the descriptive forest-scene in " John "Wood- 
vil," which, it is said, Godwin, having found somewhere 
extracted, was so enchanted with, that he hunted — of 
course vainly — through almost all the earlier poets in 
search of it. 

" To see the sun to bed, and to arise, 
Like some hot amorist, with glowing eyes, 
Bursting the lazy bands of sleep that bound him, 
"With all his fires and travelling glories round him. 



Sometimes out-stretched, in very idleness, 

Naught doing, saying little, thinking less, 

To view the leaves, thin dancers upon air, 

Go eddying round ; and small birds how they fare 

When mother Autumn fills their beaks with com, 

Filched from the careless Amalthea's horn ; 

And how the wood-berries and worms provide 

Without their pains, when Earth hath naught beside, 

To answer their small wants. 

To view the graceful deer come tripping by. 

Then stop and gaze, then turn they know not why, 

Like bashful younkers in society. 

To mark the structure of a plant or tree, 

And all fair things of earth, how fair they be." 

As a dramatic writer, Lamb was sadly deficient in 
plot and constructiveness. But, as a critic, his merits 
were of a higher order, and he is entitled to stand 
nearly in the first rank. His reputation will, however, 
ultimately rest on the " Essays of Elia," than which our 
literature rejoices in few things finer. 

We come now to the last of this great brotherhood of 
poets, and one of the most distinguished names that 
general literature has to boast of — Robert Southey. 
Like his brother bards, he was, in adolescence, an opti- 



southet's eaklier poems. 91 

mist — a dreamer, like them, of golden dreams ; but, 
with him, these died away before the strengthening 
sun of his intellect, like the deceitful exhalations of the 
morning. 

Coleridge was unfitted for the encounter of social life, 
alike by temperament and circumstances. Wordsworth 
repudiated it from choice, and from its incompatibility 
with the plan he had charted out for himself. Southey, 
on the contrary, would have been a remarkable man in 
whatever he turned his attention to, let it have been 
law, physic, or divinity, the accountant's desk or the 
merchant's wharf, the pen or the sword. His enterprise, 
like his industry, was boundless ; his self-appreciation 
was justly high ; his spirits were exuberantly elastic, 
his courage indomitable. To himself he was the hardest 
of taskmasters ; and he was not contented, like Cole- 
ridge, with merely meditating great things, but uni- 
formly carried them through, compelling himself to 
a more than Egyptian bondage — for it was from year 
to year, and every day, and all day long, and to the 
end of his life. Yet, with a noble feeling of indepen- 
dence and self-respect, he submitted to this cheerfully, 
thinking less about the completion of a quarto than 
most authors do of a pamphlet. Hour after hour had 
its allotted task, continuously, unendingly. History, 
antiquities, bibliography, translation, criticism, tale, 
poem, political economy, statistics, polemics, almost 
every department of knowledge received emblazon from 
his able, ready, versatile, and unwearied pen. His 
finest phase, however, was as a poet ; and we have now 
to glance at his chief works — " Joan of Arc," " Thalaba," 
« Madoc," " Kehama," and " Roderick." Totally inde- 
pendent of these, his lesser poems alone would have afford- 
ed ample materials for a substantial and enduring re- 
putation to any other less ambitious writer. 

In the earlier productions of Southey, he showed 
himself a poet of vivid imagination, ardent feeling, 



92 SOUTHET^S EARLIER POEMS, 

descriptive power, but uncertain taste ; and all this 
was proved as much in his choice of subjects as in his 
manner of treating them. There was evidently too 
much writing from the mere impulse of the moment, 
without regard to what preceded, or was likely to fol- 
low ; a mixture of baldness and mellowness ; in short, 
a want of unity in the masses which made up his 
groups and landscapes. We ^re often haunted with a 
feeling of mismanagement, of misdirection, or careless- 
ness ; for he worked out whatever materials were before 
him, or most easily accessible. When his fancy was at 
fault he called in his reading, and thus made a com- 
pound of invention and remembrance ; and hence it is 
that his poetical enthusiasm occasionally savours less of 
inspiration than rhetoric. Both Dr Johnson and Hel- 
vetius believed that an able man could write well at 
any time, if he only set doggedly about it — and they 
might have added on any subject, for Southe}^ would 
have afforded an excellent illustration. But there can 
be little doubt, I think, that even Southey would have 
achieved much higher things had he been less self-com- 
placent, and written with more elaboration. 

Southey shone in the paths of gentle meditation and 
philosophic reflection ; but his chief strength lay in 
description, where he had few equals. It was there 
that he revelled and rioted in the exuberant energy of 
his spirit — a devoted worshipper of nature. Akenside 
describes a landscape as it affects the fancy ; Cowper as 
it impresses the feelings ; Southey daguerreotypes the 
landscape itself. Coleridge descants on the waving of a 
leaf; Southey on its colour and configuration. Words- 
worth delights in out-flowing sentiment ; Southey in 
picturesque outline. His capacious mind may be 
likened to a variegated continent, one region of which 
is damp with fogs, rough with rocks, barren and unpro- 
fitable ; the other bright with glorious sunshine, valleys 
of rich luxuriance, and forests of perennial verdure. 



HIS ARABIAN AND HINDOO ROMANCES. 93 

Notwithstanding the wildness, the irregularity, the 
monstrosity of Southey's Arabian and Hindoo romances, 
they possess a fascination, a power, and a beauty, which 
could only have been imparted by the touch of genius. 
If, occasionally, we miss the polish of high art, we have 
always the freshness of nature and its variety. Thalaba 
is in himself an exquisite creation — beautiful in youth, 
ardent in affection, staunch in virtue, lieroic in courage, 
combining feminine sensibility of heart with more than 
chivalrous daring. His biography is outlined, to us 
from the days of his innocent childhood, when he took 
delight to 

'' Launch his aimless arrow high in air, 
Lost in the blue of heaven," 

until his heart, in adolescence, ripens with a full har- 
vest of love for " Oneiza, his own Arabian maid." 

'• She called him brother ! was it sister love 
Which made the silver rings 
Round her smooth ankles and her tawny arms 
Shine daily brightened ? For a brother's eye 

Were her long fingers tinged, 
As when she trimmed the lamp, 
And through the veins and delicate skin 
The light shone rosy ? That the darkened lids 
Gave yet a softer lustre to her eye ? 

That with such pride she tricked 
Her glossy tresses, and on holiday 
Wreathed the red-flower crown around 
Their waves of glossy jet ? 
How happily the years 
Of Thalaba went by ! " 

We behold him, in the generous fever of his spirit, 
leaving in faith all he loved, to accomplish a mysterious 
plan of retribution ; and we follow him in his wanderings, 
now by gorgeous groves, and now through the burning 
sands of the desert ; now we see him lying beside 



94 " TELALABA." 

his camel at the welcome fountain, under- the long light 
hanging boughs of the acacia, sky and plain on all sides 
bounding the horizon ; and now, far off, the ruins of old 
Babylon loom duskily between him and the sunset. 

" A night of darkness and of storms ! 
Into the chambei-s of the tomb 
Thalaba led the old man, 

To roof him from the rain. 
A night of storms ! the wind 

Swept through the moonless sky, 
And moaned among the pillared sepulchres ; 
And, in the pauses of its sweep, 
They heard the heavy rain 
Beat on the monument above. 
In silence, on Oneiza's grave, 

The father and the husband sate." 

At one time we see him buoyant with hope in the 
ultimate success of his mission ; and now we follow him 
from the banquet-room, while he gazes on the stars, 
and feels himself "a lonely being, far from all he loved." 

Thalaba is wild and wonderful ; Kehama fantastic 
and monstrous. Thalaba is more varied and imagi- 
native ; Kehama is more gorgeously and grotesquely 
magnificent. Kailyal is a beautiful creation, and 
almost rivals Oneiza in interest. While Ladurlad is 
under a curse, which for ever banishes sleep from his 
eyelids, and water from his lips, a guardian spell pro- 
tects Thalaba from the spirits of evil. But poetic 
justice ultimately saves both. Ladurlad is rescued 
from torment, and wafted up in The Ship of Heaven, 
to meet his family in The Bower of Bliss. Thalaba 
dies in the arms of victory; and at the gates of 
Paradise, " Oneiza receives his soul." 

Few things have been written by human pen more 
perfectly beautiful than the meeting of Ladurlad with 
liis wife and daughter in the mansions of the Blest, 
and which thus concludes : — 



" KEHAMA." 95 

"He knew, 

Thougli brightened with angehc grace, 
His own Yedilliau's earthly face ; 
He ran and held her to his breast. 
Oh joy above all joys of heaven ! 
By death alone to others given, 
That moment hath to him restored 
The early lost, the long deplored." 

The apostrophe which follows, commencing, 

" They sin who tell us love can die,'* 

although it must be fresh in the memory of very many 
present, I cannot resist quoting : — 

" They sin who tell us love can die- : 
With life all other passions fly. 
All others are but vanity. 
In heaven Ambition cannot dwell, 
Nor Avai-ice in the vaults of hell : 
Earthly these passions of the earth. 
They perish where they have their bu'th ; 
But Love is indestructible. 
Its holy flame for ever burneth ; 
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth ; 
Too oft on earth a troubled guest. 
At times deceived, at times opprest, 
It here is tried and purified, 
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest : 

It soweth here with toil and care. 
But the harvest-time of Love is there. 
! when a mother meets on high 

The babe she lost in infancy. 
Hath she not then, for pains and fears, 
The day of woe, the watchful night, 
For all her sorrow, all her tears. 
An over-payment of delight ? " 

Praise almost equally high may be given to many 
other descriptive portions of the poem, and to several 
of the dramatic — as the Midnight Procession, the 



apparition of Arvalan's embodied spirit, the picture 
of the watcliman on the tower at twilight, and of 
the Enchantress — which, however, strikes me as being 
more in the style of German than of Oriental exaggera- 
tion. 

Madoc, although too lengthy, and not yery artistically 
put together, also abounds in admirable passages, — pas- 
sages as fine, especially in descriptions of external nature, 
as any Southey has ever written. The incidental episodes, 
more especially that of Caradoc, and " Prince Hoel's Lay 
of Love " — the music of which seems to have rung in the 
ear of Tennyson throughout an exquisite song in his 
" Princess," — are among the most interesting portions 
of the work. Madoc's voyage is the finest sea-piece in 
the English language ; and although in it he subjects 
himself to be brought into comparison with the prince 
of Roman poets, in the sea-wanderings of ^neas to 
Latium, he can scarcely be said to be found wanting 
in the balance. 

What a tine commentary on the hearty old song, " Ye 
gentlemen of England, who sit at home at ease," are 
the following impressive lines : — 

" 'Tis pleasant, by the cheerful hearth, to hear 
Of tempests, and the dangers of the deep, 
And pause at times, and feel that we are safe ; 
Then listen to the perilous tale again, 
And, with an eager and suspended soul, 
Woo Terror to delight us : — but to hear 
The roaring of the raging elements — 
To know all human skill, all human strength 
Avail not — to look round, and only see 
The mountain- wave, incumbent with its weight 
Of bursting waters o'er the reeling bark — 
God ! this is indeed a dreadful thing ! 
And he who hath endured the horror, once. 
Of such an hour, doth never hear the storm 
Howl round his home, but he remembers it, 
And thinks upon the suffering mariner ! " 



" RODERICK." 97 

But of all Southey's great poems, "Roderick" is as- 
suredly the best, and must ever keep its place among 
the first-class productions of the age. It was the achieve- 
ment of his matured genius ; and is, throughout, more 
consistent and sustained than " Thalaba," " Madoc," or 
"Kehama." Hence it is, perhaps, that its beauties 
stand loss prominently forward from the general text ; 
but they are more in number, and higher in excellence, 
than tliose of his other works. Roderick himself is 
admirably portrayed, — bowed down with the burden 
of personal guilt and grief, yet burning to avenge the 
insults and injuries heaped on his devoted country. 
He is like a fallen constellation, yet bright with the 
traces of original glory — like a castle in ruins, breath- 
ing in stern decay of foregone magnificence. The con- 
flict between varying passions, anxiety to restore the 
liberties of his country, and the consciousness of self- 
abasement, produces a compound which is the moving 
power — the lever of his character ; and Southey has 
managed this with great dramatic skill. The meeting 
with Florinda, the recognition of Roderick by his dog 
Theron, the battle-scene in w^hich he falls, and the con- 
cluding passage — referring to the mystery regarding 
his place of sepulture — are among the most striking 
incidents of this great work, and vindicate Southey's 
claim to be regarded as a master of the lyre. " Joan 
of Arc" was less a thing of performance than promise, 
and may be likened to a young field of rich wheat 
overrun with poppies. " The Pilgrimage to Waterloo" 
is but the poet's journal cleverly versified ; some of the 
stanzas are very beautiful. Of his ballads and minor 
poems, the finest are " Lord William"— finer stanzas he 
never wrote ; " Mary the Maid of the Inn " — vigorous, 
but occasionally in bad taste ; " Queen Orrica ;" "The 
Victory;" "Youth and Age;" "Elegy on a favourite 
Dog ; " and " The Holly Tree." 
Southey's mind was exuberantly fertile, like a tropic 

G 



98 southet's dramatic powers. 

soil, and brought forth at once a plentiful crop of wheat 
and tares — of flowers and weeds. He was too self-satis- 
fied to be a judicious farmer — if we are to pursue the 
simile — and let them all grow unchecked together. 
His intellect was more remarkable for scope than 
vigour ; and, in his delineations of character, we have 
less of intuition than strict observation ; but his situa- 
tions are not only varied, but often eminentlj^ original. 
In dramatic power he was far before Byron ; and perhaps 
Southey was the only man of our age — although some 
believe that Campbell, in the hey-day of his genius, 
might have done so — who could have enriched our 
literature with a tragedy worthy of standing, at least, 
on the same shelf with Otway's " Venice Preserved," 
and Home's *' Douglas ;" for as to Shakespeare, I men- 
tion him not at all. He stands apart from and above 
compare ; and we may as well expect a second Deluge 
as a second " Macbeth," or "■ King Lear," or " Hamlet," 
or " Othello." Many of Southey's portraitures are 
beautiful in outline, but deficient in passion : they 
have almost the classic coldness of sculpture. Xot so 
his landscapes, which are always true to nature, and 
glow with vitality, varying from the dewy dawns of 
Claude to the magnificent evening twilights of Salvator 
Rosa. Almost every page of Southey's writings holds 
out a subject for the painter. The following is an 
autumn sketch from " Madoc :" 

" There was not, on that day, a speck to stain 
The azure heaven ; the blessed sun alone, 
In unapproachable divinity, 
Careered, rejoicing in the fields of light. 
How beautiful, beneath the bright blue sky. 
The billows' heave ! one glowing green expanse, 
Save where, along the line of bending shore, 
Such hue is thrown as when the peacock's neck 
Assumes its proudest tint of amethyst, 
Embathed in emerald glory : all the flocks 
Of Ocean ai'e abroad ; like floating foam 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. 99 

The sea-gulls rise and fall upon the waves ; 
With long protruded neck, the cormorants 
Wing their far flight aloft, and round and round 
The plovers wheel, and give their note of joy. 
It was a day that sent into the heart 
A summer feeling ; even the insect swarms 
From the dark nooks and coverts issued forth, 
To sport through one day of existence more. 
The solitary primrose on the bank 
Seemed now as if it had no cause to mourn 
Its bleak autumnal birth ; the rocks and shores, 
The forests, and the everlasting hills, 
Smiled in th^ joyful sunshine : they partook 
The universal blessing." 
A name mixed up with those of the poets of the Lake 
School, for much of good and evil, is that of Walter 
Savage Landor. I can only afford to glance at him here ; 
for although, as an author, he looms large in the distance, 
the grand basis of his reputation is not poetry. The 
style, tone, idiom, and manner of Landor are all quite 
un-English. He never acquired the Saxon geniality of 
his mother tongue; and his "Gebir," "Count Julian," 
and many of his other poems, read exactly like transla- 
tions, closely rendered. His long residence in a foreign 
country will not quite account for this ; for a large part 
of his verse was composed long ere he had left England 
for Italy. 

With many high excellencies, Landor's poetry must 
ever remain " a sealed book" to the multitude ; for w^ho- 
ever prefers to the obviously sublime, beautiful, and true, 
the grotesque, the visionary, and the involved, must sub- 
mit to be admired by the capricious select, who can alone 
relish such elements in composition. In the case of 
Savage Landor, this waywardness is the more to be re- 
gretted, as in his genius there are elements, vigorous, fine, 
and fresh, which might have enabled his muse to soar 
with eagle pinion high over Parnassus. He seems, how- 
ever, all along, to have systematically addressed himself 

LOFC. 



100 MACNEIL AND TANNAHILL. 

only to the ear of an audience " fit, though few," and 
even to ignore the competency of a popular tribunal. 
He moulds exclusively according to the antique, and 
often with classical severity ; but although quite willing 
to admit his general power, I cannot help thinking that 
his independence of thought not unfrequently degene- 
rates into a tone something like proud self-sufficiency. 
We have genius, learning, and knowledge, ever appa- 
rently in abundance, but ever of a very peculiar kind ; 
and often, after all, from a sheer love of paradox, he 
follows, by a side-wind, the very authorities apparently 
held in contempt. His poetic diction is involved and 
difficult, obscure from never-ending attempts at com- 
pression, and only redeemed by a picturesque power 
and a word-painting, in which he was subsequently 
followed by Hunt, Keats, and Tennyson. His imagery' 
is cold and statuesque — "we start, for life is wanting 
there ;" but the habit of composing his pieces first in 
Latin, and then translating them into his mother 
tongue — said to be his actual practice — may readily be 
set down as a main source of their obscurity and appa- 
rent affectation. He has nothing like geniality of feel- 
ing, or warmth of colouring, in his portraits or pictures. 
His wit is cumbrous : when he exhibits point, it is rather 
the poisoned sting than the exciting spur; and his glitter 
can only be compared to sunshine refracted from an icicle. 
These remarks apply solely to the verse of Landor. As 
the author of the " Imaginary Conversations," and " The 
Trial of Shakespeare," he is an Antaeus on his proper soil. 
It may be asked, what was the peculiar poetry of 
Scotland about during this period ? Not much ; yet a 
current in the river-bed of the once copious stream of 
the Gavin Douglases, and Dunbars, and Lyndsays, and 
Ramsays, and Hamiltons, and Fergussons, and which 
had overflowed like an autumn spate in Burns, showed 
that the fountain had by no means ceased to flow. 
Hector Macneil had contributed to the literature of his 



SIR A. BOSWELL, JOHN MAYNE, ETC. 101 

" auld respectit mither" "The Waes of War" — a 
simple strain, yet full of pathetic truth, and which found 
its way to the hearts of his countrymen. Alexander 
"Wilson, the pedlar and ornithologist, was perhaps better 
as either than as poet ; but he possessed energy and 
enterprise, and some of his effusions evince not a little 
of the shrewd pawkiness of the " west countrie." The 
genius of Tannahill — for he was a genius of a higher 
cast, although he wanted the resolution and firmness 
which the explorer of the American woods rejoiced in — 
showed itself in some exquisite lyrics that seemed to 
set themselves to music — as " The Flower of Dunblane," 
"The Braes of Balquhidder," and " Gloomy Winter" 
— none of which were unworthy of Burns himself. 
Richard Gall, who followed more directly in the wake 
of Fergusson, produced at least two good things — " The 
Farewell to Ayrshire," and " My only Joe and Dearie." 
John Mayne, in his "Logan Braes" and his "Siller 
Gun," showed how deeply the associations of his native 
land had taken hold of his susceptible heart and glowing 
fancy. Sir Alexander Boswell — the son of Samuel 
Johnson's "Bozzy" — had contributed his " Jenny dang 
the Weaver," as also the same accommodating damsel's 
"Bawbee;" and to separate happy effusions were 
attached the signatures of William Laidlaw, Thomas 
Cunningham, James Hislop, William Nicolson, and 
Joseph Train. Two names, however — those of James 
Hogg and Allan Cunningham — demand something more 
than mere passing notice, as men of high original 
genius : — 

" Plain his garb, 

Such as might suit a rustic sire prepared 

For Sabbath duties ; yet he is a man 

Whom no one could have passed without remark, — • 

Active and nervous is his gait. His limbs 

And his whole figure, breathe intelligence." 

Such is the portrait drawn by William Wordsworth of 



102 JAMES HOGG. 

his pedlar, the hero of " The Excursion ;" and, with 
very small wresting, the outlines may be made to apply 
to James Hogg, the scarcely less wonderful Ettrick 
Shepherd. 

There are some miscellaneous writers, as John 
Bunyan, Isaac Walton, Sir Philip Sidney, Benjamin 
Franklin, Rousseau, and Benvenuto Cellini — and some 
poets, as Tasso, Petrarcha, and Alfieri, as Burns, 
Byron, and Hogg, whose lives are interwoven with or 
constitute a running commentary on their works ; so 
much so, that it is impossible to come to a perfect 
understanding of the one without reference to the other. 
This is a critical privilege, however, which ought to be 
ever sparingly used and delicately resorted to — indeed 
never, save when countenanced by the plea of necessity. 
But with Hogg as his own repeated autobiographer, 
and who seems to have courted rather than repelled 
the license, there can be no trespass. 

The intellectual history of James Hogg is certainly 
one of the most curious that our age has presented ; and 
when we consider what an unlettered peasant was able 
to achieve by the mere enthusiasm of his genius, we are 
entitled to marvel certainly — not that his writings 
should be full of blemishes, but that his mind ever had 
power to burst through the Cimmerian gloom in which 
his earlier years seemed so hopelessly enveloped. 

The school education of the author of " The Queen's 
Wake" may be discussed in a few words, and in none 
more characteristic than those of the Shepherd himself. 
Be it remembered that he was then six years old. " The 
school-house," he says, "beingalmostat our door, I had 
attended it for a short time, and had the honour of 
standing at the head of a juvenile class, who read the 
Shorter Catechism and Proverbs of Solomon. 
Next year my parents took me home during the winter 
quarter service (as a cow-herd), and put me to school 
with a lad named Kerr, who was teaching the children 



Hogg's autobiography. 103 

of a neighbouring farmer. Here I advanced so far as to 
get into the class who read the Bible. I had likewise, 
some time before my quarter was out, tried writing, and 
had horribly defiled several sheets of paper with copy- 
lines, every letter of which was nearly an inch in length. 
Thus terminated my education. After this I was never 
another day at any school whatever. In all, I had 
spent about half-a-year at it. It is true, my former 
master denied me, and, when I was about twenty years 
of age, said, if he was called to make oath, he would 
swear I never was at his school. However, I know I 
was at it for two or three months ; and I do not choose 
to be deprived of the honour of having attended the 
school of my native parish, nor yet that old John 
Beattie should lose the honour of such a scholar." This 
really reminds one of the story of the foundling hero of 
one of Goldsmith's inimitable Essays, who was dis- 
claimed by parish after parish, until the poor fellow 
began to fear that they were to come to a determination 
that he had been born in no parish at all — in fact, that 
he was a Utopian impostor. 

After a boyhood of poverty, half- starvation, and 
labour, the shepherd-poet in embryo found himself at 
length aged fourteen, and the possessor of five shillings 
— with which he bought a fiddle (!!!) over the catgut 
of which he kept sawing Scottish tunes, for two or three 
hours ever night, after retiring to his roost in -the lofts 
of the cow-house, where the discord could molest nobody 
save himself — an antitype of Orpheus — and the rats. 
Hogg relates of himself, that the perusal of " Burnet's 
Theory of Comets" produced a wonderful effect on his 
boyish imagination ; set him pondering all the day on 
the grand Millennium and the reign of saints, and dream- 
ing all the night of " a new heavens and a new earth," 
" the stars in horror, and the world in flames." Before 
this, he had read " The Life of Wallace," and Ramsay's 
" Gentle Shepherd," spelling the longer words as he went 



104 ''mountain babd" and "spy." 

along, and wishing both productions in prose, as the 
rhymes made him often lose the sense. It was not 
■until his eighteenth year that he tried to write verses, 
and he acknowledges that his first attempts were " bit- 
ter bad." His genius, however, was prolific ; and these, 
consisting of epistles, eclogues, comedies, and pastorals, 
so rapidly accumulated on his hands, that on one of his 
visits to the Edinburgh sheep-market he rashly adven- 
tured a small volume, which of course soon died off into 
silent hopeless oblivion. Some years after this hapless 
adventure of the Poems, the Shepherd's talents having 
attracted the attention of Mr Scott, that great poet 
encouraged him to the publication of his " Mountain 
Bard." As might have been expected from an imagi- 
native mind yet mystified by the twilight of his situa- 
tion, many of its pieces were also very paltry — although 
several bore indications of that grandeur of fancy which 
afterwards formed Hogg's chief distinction ; nor do we 
think that he ever produced many finer things than his 
" Sir David Graeme," and the fragment of " Lord Der- 
went." 

" An Essay on Sheep," which gained a premium from 
the Highland Society, having put some money into his 
pocket, he contrived to lose it in some ruinous agricul- 
tural speculations ; and, after several years of flounder- 
ing, he resolved on the desperate enterprise of settling 
in Edinburgh — and as what 1 A literary adventurer. 
A collection of songs, under the title of " The Forest 
Minstrel," a volume of miscellaneous merit, created 
some little talk, but brought no golden harvest. His 
enthusiasm, however, continued unabated ; and he pos- 
sessed in a large degree that dogged confidence in his own 
abilities which could alone have carried him through his 
difficulties. Cast upon the ocean of literature — like 
Wordsworth's Highland boy in his tub — without rudder 
or compass, he felt that something behoved to be done 
— and that immediately. So he determined on a weekly 



" THE queen's wake." 105 

periodical, hight " The Spy," which was to be devoted 
to the enlightenment of the public in the niceties of 
morals, and the elegancies of polite literature. A Hot- 
tentot coming out in full fig as dancing-master could 
not have been a greater anomaly. Indeed, the Shep- 
herd's qualifications for this self-imposed task may be 
guessed at from what he himself tells us. "At this 
time I had never once been in any polished society — 
had read next to none — was now in my thirty-eighth 
year — and knew no more of human manners than a 
child." The Spy, as might have been predicted of him, 
was therefore a sad nondescript — as suspicious-looking 
a tatterdemalion as was ever rigged out from the Cow- 
gate — not without occasional bursts, however, of natural 
cleverness and talent. Many of his Sybilline Leaves 
were racy and interesting ; but, taken all in all, the 
stew thus cooked, and offered for Saturday consumption 
to the polite of the Modern Athens, was of such a mis- 
cellaneous and Irish character that few normal human 
stomachs could digest it. So the Spy was shortly given 
over as hopeless by his friends, and, evanishing from 
behind the foot-lamps of the literary stage, was heard 
of no more. 

Harassed, dismayed, disappointed, and poor, Hogg 
now determined to brace himself up for a last great 
effort, and redeem that good opinion which a few san- 
guine friends yet strongly entertained of him. Nor did 
he disappoint them, for he produced "The Queen's 
Wake," — a poem of distinguished excellence; and 
which, bating a few verbal laxities, would do honour 
to any name in our literature, however high. Full of 
poetry and power, and of varied excellence, it is, at the 
same time, wonderfully free from those blemishes of 
coarseness, and of indifferent taste, which had unfortu- 
nately — but not miraculously — disfigured Hogg's former 
writings. By a great, a noble, and determined effort, he 
seemed to have got rid of all his trammels, and his muse 



106 THE ETTEICK SHEPHERD AS AN XMAGmATIVE POET. 

soared away from the earthly "Slough of Despond," into 
the blue heaven of invention, to look down on " The 
Abbot Mackinnon" in his enchanted ship, and on 
"Bonny Kilmeny" wandering amid the fadeless flowers 
of Fairyland. " The Pilgrims of the Sun " and " Mador 
of the Moor" followed. Both are very unequal, although 
not without passages in his best manner ; and the same 
may be said of his " Dramatic Tales," — of his most am- 
bitious effort, "Queen Hynde," — and of his various 
volumes of " Songs." Not a few, however, of these last 
are admirable, and entitle him to a place among the 
bards of Scotland equal to Ramsay, and second only 
to Burns. Some of his Jacobite melodies, as " Cam ye 
by Athole," " The Lament of Flora Macdonald," and 
" Donald Magilavray," have attained a popularity which 
they will keep — because they deserve it ; while there is 
about his " Bonny Lass of Deloraine," his " Bonny 
Mary," " I lookit east, I lookit west," " I hae IS'aebody 
now," and " "When the Kye come hame," — a pathos, and 
a pastoral delicacy and wildness, which would alone have 
stamped the Shepherd a poet of rare and peculiar powers. 
The finest vein of Hogg's poetry was exclusively^ that 
which ran among things surpassing nature's law. He 
was then like a being inspired ; whenever his feet 
touched mother earth, he became a mere ordinary 
mortal. Amid the skyey regions of imagination he 
rejoiced in the power and splendour of his genius — an 
eagle of Parnassus ; but when thridding through the 
affections and feelings of humanity, he was apt to sink 
down to the level of the commonplace verse-monger — 
or, at most, was a Triton among the minnows. To 
be appreciated as he deserves, the Shepherd must be 
studied in "Kilmeny," in "Glen Aven," in "The 
Witch of Fife," in " Old David," in '' The Abbot Mac- 
kinnon," in the aerial voyagings of " Mary Lee," in 
" Sir David Graeme," and in his various legendary stores 
and stories. 



*'the witch of fife." 107 

"Kilmeny" has been the theme of universal admira- 
tion, and deservedly so, for it is what Wharton would 
have denominated "pure poetry." It is, for the most 
part, the glorious emanation of a sublime fancy — the 
spontaneous sprouting forth of amaranthine flowers of 
sentiment — the bubbling out and welling over of in- 
spiration's fountain. There is no perceptible art, no 
attempt at eflfect, no labour. The magician waves his 
wand, and we find ourselves walking in an enchanted 
circle — "In a cloudless eve, in a sinless world." There 
is a vague wildness and an unearthly hue in its land- 
scapes — a supernatural tint in its imagery — the tones of 
something not appertaining to this world in its irregular 
-(Eolian mu^ic. Nor, as a piece of imaginative writing, 
is the " Abbot Mackinnon " much inferior. " The Mer- 
maid's Song" is strangely grand; and its sketches of 
sea-scenery are full of a rude, remote, bleak magnifi- 
cence. 

The following verses from the strange, wild, pictu- 
resque ballad, " The Witch of Fife," strongly indicate 
Hogg's peculiar strain of thought and imagery. I have 
somewhat modernised the spelling of a few antique 
words : — 

" The second night, when the new moon set, 
O'er the roaring sea we flew ; 
The cockle-shell our trusty bark, 
Our sails the green-sea rue. 

And the bauld winds blew, and the fire-flaughts flew, 

And the sea ran to the sky ; 
And the thunder it growled, and the sea-dogs howled, 

As we gaed scouring bye. 

And aye we mounted the sea-green hills. 

While we brush'd through the clouds of the heaven, 

Than soused downright, like the star-shot light, 
From the lift's blue casement driven. 



108 "the witch of fife." 

But our tackle stood, and our bark was good. 

And so pang was our pearly prow, 
When we could not spiel the brow of the waves, 

We needilit them through below. 

As fast as the hail, as fast as the gale. 

As fast as the midnight lenie. 
We bore through the breast of the bursting swell, 

Or fluffiLt in the floating faem. 

And when to the Norroway shore we wan, 
We mounted our steeds of the wind ; 

And we splashed the flood, and we darned the wood. 
And we left the shower behind. 

Fleet is the roe on the gi-een Lomond, 

And swift is the cowering grewe, 
The rein- deer dun can eithly run, 

When the hounds and the horns pursue. 

But neither the roe, nor the rein-deer dun, 

The hind, nor the cowering grewe. 
Could fly over mountain, moor, and dale. 

As our braw steeds they flew. 

The dales were deep, and the Dofi'rines steep. 

And we rose to the skies e'e-bree ; 
White, white was our road, that was never trode. 

O'er the snows of eternity ! 

And when we came to the Lapland lone, 

The fairies were all in array ; 
For all the genii of the North 

Were keeping their holiday. 

The warlock men and the weird women, 
And the fays of the wood and the steep. 

And the phantom-hunters all were there, 
And the mermaids of the deep. 



"kilment." 109 

And they washed us all with the witch- water, 

Distilled from the moorland dew, 
While our beauty bloomed like the Lapland rose 

That wild in the forest grew." 

Nothing in the picturesque of superstition has ever 
surpassed this, save perhaps the following, which is, 
however, in quite another vein : — 

" Bonny Kilmeny gaed up the glen, 
But it was not to meet Duneira's men, 
Nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, 
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. 
It was only to hear the yorline sing, 
And pull the cress-flower round the spring ; 
The scarlet-hyp, and the hind-berrye, 
And the nut that hangs from the hazel tree ; 
For Kilmeny was pure as pure could be. 
But lang may her mother look owre the wa'. 
And lang may she seek in the greenwood shaw ; 
Lang the laird of Duneira blame, 
And lang, lang greet or Kilmeny come hame ! 

When many a day had come and fled. 

When grief grew calm, and hope was dead, 

When mass for Kilmeny's soul had been sung, 

When the bedesman had prayed, and the death-bell rung, 

Late, late in a gloaming, when all was still, 

When the fringe was red on the western hill, 

The wood was sere, the moon on the wane, 

The reek of the cot hung over the plain, 

Like a little wee cloud in the world its lane ; 

When the ingle lowed with an eerie leme. 

Late, late in the gloaming Kilmeny came hame ! *' 

She had been carried away, in her sinless beauty, to 
Fairyland, where 

*' The sky was a dome of crystal bright. 
The fountain of vision, and fountain of light ; 
The emerald fields were of dazzling glow. 
And the flowers of everlasting blow." 



no "kilment." 

And after remaining seven years — the term of probation 
there — had been permitted once more to revisit earth. 
Such was her reception hy the inferior creation, that — 

" Wherever her peaceful form appeared, 

The -wild beasts of the hill were cheered : 
The wolf played blithely round the field. 
The lordly bison lowed and kneeled ; 
The dun-deer wooed, with manner bland, 
And cowered beneath her lily hand ; 
And when at even the woodlands rung, 
When hymns of other worlds she sung. 
In ecstasy of sweet devotion. 
Oh, then the glen was all in motion ! 

The wild beasts of the forest came, 

Bi-oke from their bughts and folds the tame, 

And gazed around, charmed and amazed ; 

Even the dull cattle croon'd and gazed. 

And murmured, and looked with anxious pain 

For something the mystery to explain. 

The buzzard came, with the throstle-cock ; 

The corbie left her houff in the rock ; 

The blackbird along with the eagle flew ; 

The hind came tripping o'er the dew ; 

The wolf and the kid their play began, 

And the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret ran ; 

The hawk and the heron above them himg. 

And the merle and the mavis forsook their young ; 

And all in a peaceful ring were hurled : 

It was like an eve in a sinless woiid ! 

When a month and a day had come and gane, 
Kilmeny sought the green- wood wene ; 
There laid her down on the leaves so green, 
And Kilmeny on earth was never more seen. 
But all the land were in fear and dread. 
For they knew not whether she was hving or dead. 
It was not her home, and she could not remain ; 
She left this world of sorrow and pain, 
And retm-ned to the land of thought again." 



CHARACTER OP HOGG's POETRY. ]ll 

One word of remark on poetry such as tbis were 
superfluous : it appeals at once, and that triumpliantly, 
to the heart and the imagination, and carries the cal- 
culating critic fairly off his feet, by a coup-de-main. 
But, of course, it was only in his transient fits of 
inspiration that the Shepherd thus wrote. 

The poetry of James Hogg is not that of philosophic 
sentiment, like Wordsworth's, nor of reflection, like 
that of Bowles ; nor of minute painting, like that of 
Crabbe ; nor of picturesque action, like that of Scott. 
We should assign him a place between the Claud-like 
delicate fairy dreaminess of Wilson, and the Salvator 
Rosa demonology of Coleridge ; although without the 
classic taste of the one or the gorgeous magnificence of 
the other. He never reveals to us the human ajSfections 
and passions in the whirlwind of their operations ; 
nor does he exhibit any intimate knowledge of the 
constituted forms of society. His portraitures of men 
and manners are, in general, sad affairs. Like Coleridge 
and Shelley, almost the whole of his power lay in his 
wonderful imagination. He delights in the vague and 
abstracted ; in the picturesque and ideal ; in the wild, 
lonely, savage features of nature ; in the benighted 
traveller on the purple moors; in the Covenanter on 
the sea-beat clitf ; the shepherd on the grassy moun- 
tain ; the plaided clansman beside the sepulchral cairn 
in the glen ; the enthusiast waiting the appearance 
of the sheeted spectre by the moonlit stream. His 
muse was a sojourner by the foaming cataract and the 
roaring ocean, by the scathed forest and the barren 
wilderness. She is conversant only with our terrors 
and superstitions — our " fierce wars and faithful loves " 
— with the romance of human action, the poetry of 
life. 

We come naturally next to say a few words of Allan 
Cunningham, another racy and original poet, who also 
sprang from the bosom of the people, and whose genius 



112 ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. 

was as sterling as it was peculiar. Allan Cunningham 
stands in direct contrast to James Hogg in this, that his 
best poetry, like that of Robert Burns, was composed in 
early life, and before he had emerged from obscurity, or 
become at all conversant with the conventional forms of 
the world. His vein was intrinsically and genuinely a 
native one, and could only be spoiled by artificial culti- 
vation. His prose improved by practice ; but his verse 
lost the peculiar characteristics which originally gave it 
value. He seemed himself unaware of this, and kept 
writing on, in the crawling crowds of London, about the 
pastoral JNith, and the heights of Blackwood, and the 
groves of Dalswinton ; but in a far different tone from 
that to which he had tuned his youthful harp, -''amang 
the primrose banks of the bonny Cowehill," or beside the 
blood-stained lintels of " Carlisle Yetts." Indeed, I doubt 
much if any injury would have accrued to Cunning- 
ham's fame had he dropped his poetic mantle before 
crossing the Border, and trusted his reputation to the 
early ballads published in Cromek's " Remains of Xiths- 
dale and Galloway Song ;" for by these, as a poet, will 
he be chiefly remembered. His latter vein was thinner 
and weaker ; he wrote more ambitiously, but more dif- 
fusely ; and, in attempting polish, he lost raciness. His 
larger and more elaborate compositions, his " Sir Marraa- 
duke Maxwell," and his " Maid of Elvar," with many 
scintillations of genius, with many diamond sparks of 
true inspiration, want thews and sinews ; and, at best, 
are unsatisfactory. He is sadly deficient in plot and 
constructiveness ; and although his eloquence and en- 
thusiasm never flag, the reader wearies, and cannot 
help deploring that these are often misdirected. He 
knew not where to stop, and continually perilled 
success from lack of critical discretion. 

This goes far to account for the fact that all his 
happiest compositions are in the shape of ballad and 
song, where he was necessarily compelled to be concise 



HIS EARLY POEMS. 113 

and concentrated. His fine peculiar genius was intensely 
national ; and he had the wonderful faculty of com- 
pletely throwing himself back into, and identifying 
his feelhigs and thoughts with, those of bygone genera- 
tions. Amid these, as viewed by him in the mirror of 
imagination, we feel tliat he is far more secure and at 
home than amid the imperfectly understood manners 
of his own day, while with the things of departed ages 
neither himself nor his readers have any misgivings 
about the tone or colouring of his pictures ; for, when 
reality fails, he brightens them over with the tints of 
fairyland, or overshadows them with the " gloom of 
earthquake and eclipse." 

The genius of Allan Cunningham was essentially 
lyrical. In the narrative and descriptive his drawing 
is continually out of keeping ; and he lacks discretion 
or discernment. He was fond of large surfaces, and of 
painting in al-fresco ; whereas his forte lay in minia- 
ture, and on small canvass. He mistook himself for 
an Etty, when he might have been a Noel Paton. 

His early poems, " The Mermaid of Galloway," " She's 
gane to dwall in Heaven," "The Lord's Marie," and 
" Bonny Lady Anne," are perfect gems — are in their 
way unsurpassed and inimitable ; and scarcely less 
may be said of his songs — " 'Tis Hame, hame, hame," 
" The Sun rises bright in France," " The wee, wee Ger- 
man Lairdie," " A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea," and 
" My Nannie, O." The following very characteristic 
fragment has all the picturesque setting and artless 
pathos of the genuine traditionary ballad : — 

" Gane were but the winter cauld, 
And gane were but the snaw, 
I could sleep in the wild-woods, 
Where primroses blaw. 

Cauld's the snaw at my head, 
And cauld at my feet, 
H 



114 SCIENCE AND POETRY. 

And the finger o' death's at my e'en, 
Faulding them to sleep. 

Let nane tell my father, 

Or my mither sae dear ; 
I'll meet them baith in heaven, 

At the spring o' the year." 

Apart from mere scholarship, we know what Shake- 
speare and Scott, what Burns and Bloomfield, what 
Hogg and Cunningham were, as poets. And the ques- 
tion naturally arises, do Science and Poetry progress 
together 1 

Poetry may be defined to be — Objects or subjects 
seen through the mirror of imagination, and descanted 
on in harmonious language. Such a definition is far 
from perfect, but it may be accepted as a sufficiently 
comprehensive one ; and, if so, it must be admitted 
that the very exactness of knowledge is a barrier to 
the laying on of that colouring by which alone facts 
can be invested with the illusive hues of poetry. The 
proof of this would be a reference to what has been 
generally regarded as the best poetry of the best authors 
in ancient and modern times. Without interfering 
with the laws of the world of mind — which, from the 
days of Plato to Kant, seem involved in the same 
cloud of uncertainty — let me turn to the external 
world, and it will be at once apparent that the pre- 
cision of science, as shown in geographical limits, and 
in the recognised laws of matter, would at once annul 
the grandest portions of the Psalms — of Isaiah — of 
Ezekiel — of Job — of the Revelation. It would convert 
the mythology of Hesiod and Homer, the " Medea" 
of Euripides, the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid, and the 
" Atys" of Catullus, into rhapsodies; and transform 
"The Faery Queen" of Spenser, "The Tempest" and 
" Midsummer Night's Dream " of Shakespeare, the 
" Comus" of Milton, " The Fatal Sisters" of Gray, 



IMMUTABLE ELEMENTS OF POETET. 113 

" The Ancient Mariner" of Coleridge, the '' Thalaba" 
of Southej, the " Laodamia" of Wordsworth, the 
"Edith and Nora" of Wilson, the " Kilmeny" of 
Hogg, and the " Sensitive Plant" of Shelley, in fact, 
all high imaginative verse — into tissues of rant, bom- 
bast, and fustian. 

In the contest between Bowles and Byron on the 
invariable principles of poetry, the lesser poet, as T 
hinted in a preceding lecture, had infinitely the best of 
the argument ; but he did not make the most of it by 
illustration and example — for no one could be hardy 
enough to maintain that a castle newly erected is 
equally poetical with a similar one in ruins, like Tan- 
tallon, Dunotter, or Dunstaffnage ; or a man-of-war, 
fresh from the stocks, with one that has braved the 
battle and the breeze — with Duncan's " Venerable," or 
Nelson's " Victory." Stone and lime, as well as timber 
and sail-cloth, require associations to raise them beyond 
prose. Push the theory to the extreme, and you cannot 
help proving Pope a greater poet than Shakespeare ; and, 
with regard to Pope's own performances, it would make 
his " Essay on Criticism" equal to his " Eloise," for it 
is written with the same care and power ; and it would 
show that Darwin's " Botanic Garden," and Hayley's 
" Triumphs of Temper," might stand on the same shelf 
with Cowper's " Task," or Thomson's " Seasons." 
Wherever light penetrates the obscure, and illuminates 
the uncertain, we may rest assured that a demesne has 
been lost to the realms of imagination. 

That poetry can never be robbed of its chief ornaments 
and elements, I firmly believe — for these elements are 
the immutable principles of our nature ; and, while 
men breathe, there is room for a new Sappho or a new 
Simonides to melt, and for a new Tyrtseus and a new 
Pindar to excite and inspire ; nor, in reference to the 
present state of literature, although I shrewdly doubt 
whether either Marmion or Childe Harold would, even 



116 DISENCHANTMENTS. 

now, be hailed, as we delight to know that they were 
hailed some thirty or forty years ago ; still I do not 
despair of poetry ultimately recovering from the stag- 
gering blows which science has inflicted in the shape of 
steam conveyance — of electro-magnetism — of geological 
exposition — of political economy — of statistics — in fact, 
by a series of disenchantments. Original genius in due 
time must, from new elements, frame new combina- 
tions ; and these may be at least what the kaleidoscope 
is to the rainbow, or an explosion of hydrogen in the 
gasometer to a flash of lightning on the hills. But this 
alters not my position — that all facts are prose, until 
coloured by imagination or passion. From physic we 
have swept away alchemy, incantation, and cure by the 
royal touch ; from divinity, exorcism, and purgatory, 
and excommunication ; and from law, the trial by 
wager of battle, the ordeal by touch, and the mysterious 
confessions of witchcraft. In the foamy seas, we can 
never more expect to see Proteus leading out his flocks ; 
nor, in the dimpling stream, another Narcissus admiring 
his own fair face ; nor Diana again descending on 
Latmos to Endymion. We cannot hope another Una, 
" making a sunshine in the shady place ;" nor another 
Macbeth, meeting with other witches on the blasted 
heath ; nor another Faust, wandering amid the myste- 
rious sights and sounds of another Mayday night, 
Robin Hoods and Rob Roys are incompatible with 
sherifis and the county police. Rocks are stratified by 
geologists, exactly as satins are measured by mercers ; 
and Echo, no longer a vagrant classic nymph, is com- 
pelled quietly to succumb to the laws of Acoustics. 



LECTUEE III. 



Ballad Poetry.— The Revival of the Romantic School.— Sir Walter Scott ; his 
poetry and the feudal system ; his popularity and imitators ; his nationality 
and transcendent genius— The Lay — Mavmion— Lady of the Lake— Lord 
of the Isles— Songs and Ballads. — Professor Wilson and Lord Byron : — Isle 
of Palms — City of the Plague — Fairy Legends — Unimore. — Extracts, 
Morning Picture — The Course of Grief. — Thomas Campbell and James 
Montgomery; — The Pleasures of Hope — Lyrical Poems — Gertrude of 
Wyoming. — Early decline of Campbell's powers ; his classical elegance and 
high standard of taste. — Specimens from O'Connor's Child, and Stanzas on 
Battle of Alexandria. — James Montgomery's Wanderer of Switzerland- 
West Indies — World before the Flood — Greenland — Pelican Island — and 
Lyrics. — Extracts, The Sky of the South — Prayer. — The legitimate aims of 
poetry. — The use and abuse of genius. 

Common to every human heart there is a certain class 
of emotions, the expressions of which " turn as they 
leave the lips to song ;" and hence the primitive form 
of poetry in the ballad. It is also to be remarked, that 
throughout all countries the themes of these ballads are 
the same — " Ladye love, and war, renown, and knightly 
worth." 

So large a portion even of the poetry of Homer takes 
this shape, that it has been seized upon as a leading 
feature in the controversy regarding the unity of the 
authorship of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" — a contro- 
versy first started by Scaliger in his " Poetics," and 
afterwards followed out by Wolf in his " Prologomena ;" 
and many of these separate gems of narrative were by 
Dr Maginn — who at same time repudiated the heresy — 
disjoined from the context, and translated under the 



118 PRIMITIVE FORM OF POETRY IN THE BALLAD. 

title of " Homeric Ballads." Mr Macaulay thinks it 
highly probable that the traditionary legends of primi- 
tive Rome also existed in the same popular form, and 
hence their reappearance, "under his plastic touch, in 
the " Ancient Lays." It has been the same " from 
Zembla to the line ;" for, among others, Davis, in his 
" Researches," mentions those of the Chinese ; Sir Wil- 
liam Jones, the Persian and Arabic ; Leyden, the Malay 
and Sanscrit ; TVeber and Jaraieson present the Swedish, 
German, and Danish ; Herbert, the Icelandic and Norse ; 
Bowring, the Russian, Polish, and Hungarian ; Lockhart 
and Frere, the Spanish; Percy, Ellis, and Ritson, the 
English ; Hailes, Scott, Motherwell, and Robert Cham- 
bers, the Scottish. 

In every case these songs and ballads are valuable, 
not only as poetical, but as historical records. They 
show the idiosyncrasies of a people — the habits, customs, 
and manners, which " long wont" has metamorphosed 
almost into a second nature ; and the peculiarities and 
circumstances which have gone towards the formation 
of national character at different times in particular 
regions of the world. 

To them Scotland in some measure owes its greatest 
poet, in so far at least as determining the bent of his 
genius was concerned ; for it Avas while listening with 
rapt ear to the stirring or plaintive minstrelsies of the 
Border districts that the fire of song aw^akened in the 
young heart of Walter Scott ; and his first great appear- 
ance was in presenting these traditionary stores in a 
collected form to the world, accompanied by imitations 
of their style and manner, so accurate and striking as 
at once to prove the close study he had given them, and 
the depth of that impression which the originals had 
made on his feelings and fancy. In many of these 
strange wild fragments and relics, there is a pathos and 
a sublimity which, we are not ashamed to confess, con- 
strain our thoughts into those lacunae — those profound 



ANCIENT BORDER BALLADS. 119 

hidden recesses of man's nature and condition — far 
more effectually than ever was achieved by more artistic 
strains. Their charm lies in their intense nature — the 
only intense or earnest school I am inclined to recog- 
nise ; now by their pathos awakening feelings too deep 
for tears— as in " The Flowers of the Forest" and 
"Ellen of Kirkconnel;" and now by their dauntless 
and heroic outbursts, dirling the heart-strings like the 
martial tir-a-la of a trumpet — as in " The Battle of 
Otterburn" and " The Douglas Tragedy ;" giving, as it 
were, an assurance of inspiration, and almost realising 
the magical attributes of Kilspindie the Harper, or of 
Orpheus of old, or of the Syrens three, " amid the 
flowery-kirtled Naiades." To add to the interest of all 
this, the authors, even in name and whereabouts, have 
utterly perished and passed away, and their lays come 
to our ears like the bodiless voice of Cona — ^olian 
sounds circling the misty mountain -tops, or murmuring 
through the pastoral valleys — unclaimed relics floating 
down the stream of time, like drift-wood to the ocean. 

At this shrine Scott kindled the torch of his genius, 
and set himself in earnest to work out scenes of interest, 
and images of beauty and power, from the warblings of 
scalds, and bards, and troubadours, and minnesingers — 
in short, from the vast mass of materials which were 
open to him in the hitherto almost unappropriated and 
rich vast quarry of the feudal system ; and the first 
grand result came forth in " The Lay of the Last 
Minstrel" — a poem which at once took public opinion 
by storm, and distanced, utterly distanced, all competi- 
tion in the race of popularity. Whiteheads, Pyes, 
Hooles, Hayleys, Darwins, and Sewards, were at a coup 
swept from the literary theatre stage, like the unoccupied 
chairs and shifting scenes, and we were called in at once 
to witness the death and burial of Boileau and French 
criticism. " The strain now heard was of a higher 
mood ;" it was one of freedom and freshness and force. 



120 "the lay of the last minstrel." 

By a wave of his wand, the magician repeopled his 
country with the burghers of the past — regarrisoned 
each time-worn castle with helmet and spear, and buff- 
jerkin — reawoke the melodious choir in each grey 
crumbling abbey — and gave back to Night her ghost, her 
witch, and her fairy, — in whose mystic presence Scott 
hesitated not to say of the most stalwart knight, Sir 
William of Deloraine — of one who feared not the face of 
man — that 

'* somewhat was he chilled with dread, 

And the hair did bristle upon his head." 
In short, the only analogy to the sweeping current of 
his verse is to be found in his own description of a 
stream swollen by autumnal rains, which 

" from fetters freed, 

Down from the mountains did roaring come ; 
Each wave was crested with tawny foam, 
Like the mane of a chestnut steed." 

In energy and originality, and in affluence of thought 
and matter, " The Lay" takes the lead, in excellence as 
in priority of appearance, of all Scott's other great 
works. In it he is like a man who has opened up a 
rich vein of gold and precious metal, and is prodigally 
lavish of the treasures around him — the first digger in a 
newly-discovered California. It is not only fine in 
passages, but gorgeously rich through all its parts. His 
figures have the bold outline and ornate costume of 
Vandyke ; while his landscapes combine the freshness of 
Gainsborough, and the picturesqueness of Turner, with 
the massy shadows of Thomson of Duddingstone. As 
if the subject in hand was not enough, each canto opens, 
by way of voluntary, Avith a burst so vigorous and 
fresh as can only be likened to the luxury of vegetation 
on the first digging over of a fertile virgin soil ; and 
the description of Melrose Abbey by moonlight — the 
apostrophe to love — the comparison of the Teviot to 



" MAEMION." 121 

the tide of life — and the invocation to Caledonia — have 
only to be once read to remain for ever impressed on 
the memory of all true lovers of the lyre. 

" Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 

This is my own — my native land ! 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned, 

From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
If such there be, go mark him well ; 
For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish could claim, 
Despite these titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch, concentred all in self, 
Living shall forfeit fair renown. 
And doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile earth from which he sprung. 
Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung." 

With less of enthusiasm and splendour in parts, 
" Marmion" surpasses " The Lay" as a whole in varied 
tissue of incident, in mellowness of colouring, and in 
ingenuity of plot. It is painted on a broader canvass, 
yet is more coherent and regular ; its foregrounds are 
more artistically shaded, and its general tone more 
softened and elaborated. It is also more diversified in 
action, and displays a larger, a more extended insight 
into human character. In depth of interest, and in 
impress of dread reality, the subterranean judgment- 
scene at Holy Island may stand comparison with the 
disinterring of Michael Scott in Melrose Abbey ; and 
the dying speech of Constance passes from the pathetic 
to the sublime in its melting tenderness, its energetic 
passion, its prophetic denouncements, and its heart- 
crushing despair. 

" The Lady of the Lake" is cast in a more dramatic 
form. It is a succession of beautifully painted scenes, 



122 "the lady op the lake." 

where contrasts are admirably brought out — the High- 
lands and the Lowlands — the Gael and the Saxon ; and 
in mere story it ranks above either of its predecessors, 
commencing with a stag-hunt to entrap the gentlemen, 
and concluding with a marriage to propitiate the ladies. 
The night-rencontre between Fitz-James and Roderick 
Dhu is in Scott's very best manner ; it is finely con- 
ceived ; and the collateral incidents are made to develop 
themselves with that ingenuity and telling effect which 
remind us of Fielding's consummate art in the manage- 
ment of plot, and bespeak the master's hand. There 
is something like melodramatic straining, I think, in 
the marriage and death scenes, which abide the peram- 
bulations of the Fiery Cross ; yet I am perfectly aware, 
at the same time, that it would be next to impossible 
to have otherwise given such a striking illustration of 
the devotedness of the Highland clans to their chieftains, 
as is there exhibited — a devotedness romantically 
proved in 1745. Perhaps the finest thing in the poem 
— and it abounds with fine things — is the lay of Allan 
Bane in the prison cell of the dying Roderick ; the 
variations of whose melody imitate the vicissitudes of 
the battle-field — now bursting forth in stormy tones of 
thunder — now undulating in mournful murmurs, like 
the sough of the winter wind in the forest, and now 
hurrying imagination, as it were, from the crashing onset 
on through the crossing and conflict of sword and targe 
to the struggle for life and death — and on, still on, to 
the waning sounds of defeat, the implorations for 
quarter, and the dirge-like wailing over the departed. 

" Rokeby" may be taken in extract to great advan- 
tage ; but, as a whole, it is less felicitous than the 
magnificent works now glanced at. A giant on his 
native soil, Scott had here for the first time crossed the 
Border, and, like Samson in bonds, seemed somewhat 
shorn of his strength, or at least of his confidence in it ; 
for he could not but feel himself surrounded with new 



''the lord op the isles." 123 

associations. The savage character of Bertram, and the 
gentle one of Wilfred, are alike exquisitely drawn — the 
former a compound of his own William of Deloraine 
and Lord Marmion, with an additional dash of savagery ; 
the latter of Beattie's " Edwin" in the Minstrel, and of 
Mackenzie's " Man of Feeling," Harley ; and they indi- 
cate much of that intuitive or perceptive power which 
Scott afterwards triumphantly displayed in his match- 
less immortal prose tales. As a descriptive poem, it is 
rich to luxuriance ; but neither there nor in " The 
Lord of the Isles" — grand and majestic, in parts, 
though it also be — have we the same ample measure of 
poetical riches " heaped up, pressed down, and yet 
flowing over," which forms the striking characteristic 
of " The Lay" and " Marmion." 

" The Lord of the Isles" is a misnomer ; for certainly 
King Robert the Bruce is not only the hero of the poem, 
but the greatest part of its interest centres in him. He 
is drawn with minute historical accuracy ; and his 
coolness, his sagacity, and determined resolution, are 
brought out in fine contrast with the more boisterous 
and unbridled daring of his brother Edward. " The 
Lord of the Isles" is himself perplexing, and his bride 
Edith unsatisfactory — neither carries our sympathies 
along with them ; and, finely as Bannockburn is de- 
scribed, it lacks the bold vigour and glowing pictu- 
resqueness of Flodden. The most strange and striking 
portions of the work are those which relate to the Isle 
of Skye, where, in depicting desolate and savage gran- 
deur, and a tribe of inhabitants " with minds as barren, 
and with hearts as hard," Scott taxes himself to the 
very height of his powers, and with triumphant success. 

Besides these great, and, in their walk, hitherto 
unrivalled poems. Sir Walter Scott left others — " Don 
Roderick," " The Bridal of Triermain," " Harold the 
Dauntless," and lyrics, songs, and miscellanies— amply 
suflicient in themselves to have secured a high reputation 



124 SIR WALTER SCOTT's SOXGS AND BALLADS. 

for any other writer, but which can only be regarded 
as second-rate, when classed with the master-pieces of 
his own genius. Of his ballads, the finest are " The 
Eve of St John," itself an epic in miniature ; the dirge 
of " Rosabelle" in the Lay ; " Lochinvar" in Marmion ; 
" Alice Brand" in the Lady of the Lake ; " Brignal 
Banks" in Rokeby : and the third part of " Thomas 
the Rhymer" in the Minstrelsy, one of the earliest 
attempts of its author, but one which, in poetical 
excellence, whether we regard style, manner, or matter, 
he never surpassed ; and its silvery cadences, unrivalled 
in their flow, save by Coleridge's " Genevieve," have 
been the source of many a fond but futile imitation. 
In song-writing. Sir "Walter Scott is, as in all other 
things, great ; but there even he must yield, as all 
others must, to Robert Burns, who is, in that depart- 
ment, indeed, " above all Greek, above all Roman fame," 
— a more than Simonides in pathos, as in his " Highland 
Mary ;" a more than Tyrteeus in fire, as in his " Scots 
wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled ;" and a softer than Sappho 
in love, as in his — 

" Had we never loved so kindly, 
Had we nevei" loved so blindly. 
Never met — or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted." 

I have given one of Sir Walter Scott's trumpet tones ; 
now for a gentle whisper from his lute, — " The Hymn of 
the Hebrew Maid :" — 

" When Israel, of the Lord beloved, 

Out from the land of bondage came, 
Her father's God before her moved, 

An awfal guide in smoke and flame. 
By day, along the astonished lands, 

The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands 

Returned the fiery column's glow. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT'S IMITATORS. 125 

There rose the choral hymn of praise, 

And ti'ump and timbrel answei-ed keen, 
And Sion's daughters poured their lays, 

With priest's and warrior's voice between. 
No portents now our foes amaze, 

Forsaken Israel wanders lone ; 
Our fathers would not know Thy ways. 

And Thoii. hast left them to their own. 

But, present still, though now unseen ; 

When brightly shines the prosperous day, 
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen 

To temper the deceitful ray. 
And oh ! when stoops on Judah's path 

In shade and storm the frequent night, 
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath, 

A burning and a shining light ! 

Our harps we left by Babel's streams, 

The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn ; 
No censer round our altar beams, 

And mute our timbrel, trump, and horn. 
But Thou hast said, the blood of goat, 

The flesh of I'ams, I will not prize ; 
A contrite heart, an humble thought. 

Are mine accepted sacrifice." 

From the appearance of " The Lay " through the series 
of years to 1812, Sir Walter Scott reigned the undisputed 
" Napoleon of the realms of rhyme ;" and the swarm of 
imitators which his success called forth would not be 
credited in after times, could not reference be made to 
the cotemporary book-lists. Nine-tenths of these imi- 
tations were — as might have been expected — " voces et 
prceterea nihil,'' mere bodiless echoes. A few had stamina, 
which endured for a season — as " Margaret of Anjou," 
" The Fight of Falkirk," " Christina, the Maid of the 
South Seas," " The Legend of lona," and some half- 
dozen others ; but the battalia of romances in six cantos, 



125 CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS GEXirS. 

with historical notes, whose name was legion, have, 
without one exception now occurring to me, long since 
gone to the tomb of the Capulets, having, after lying 
undisturbed many long years in their dusty sheets on 
the subterranean shelves of bookseller's warehouses, been 
at last bargained for, taken compassion on, and entombed 
by that tender-hearted body of United Samaritans, the 
pastry-cooks and trunk-liners. 

This body of romancing rhymsters, however they 
might otherwise differ, seemed harmoniously to adhere 
to the elements of the following recipe : — Take a fair 
and love-lorn damsel — a valorous knight of the six-feet 
club, in black or white armour, with plumes vice versa ; 
a fiery-eyed horse, that neighs well, richly caparisoned ; 
two thin pale nuns, and a bold fat friar ; a leash of stag- 
hounds ; an ivied castle, with a moat, drawbridge, and 
grim-looking donjon keep, in which last place a forlorn 
captive ; warders, grooms, and serving-men ad libitum : 
a dark oak-forest, with a hairy hermit in sackcloth, who 
feeds on wild honey and cresses ; a ruined abbey, pal- 
pably haunted ; and a " Wizard of the Xorth." Throw 
in, for seasoning, according to current taste, a shipwreck ; 
a storm of thunder, with forked-lightning of the bluest ; 
a ferocious murder, and a gorgeous marriage ; and, hav- 
ing commingled well, serve up to the public. 

Sir Walter Scott was characterised by the manly 
straightforwardness of his genius ; by his disdain of 
petty ornament ; by his dealing with grand first prin- 
ciples ; by the simple majesty of his conceptions ; by 
his vigour of execution ; by his boundless acquired 
knowledge ; by his unequalled eye for the picturesque ; 
by felicitous combination of incident ; by striking indi- 
viduality of portraiture, alike in heroic action, and in 
melting tenderness — in short, by all the highest qualities 
which have ever distinguished the mighty masters of 
the lyre ; and, if we are to translate the term " poet" 
into " maker," or " inventor," and are thus enabled to add 



INANITIES OF CBITICISM. 127 

to his productions in verse those novels and romances 
which have delighted the world — more than half of the 
whole accumulated writings of the last fifty years put 
together — I at once put him far beyond Byron, Words- 
worth, or any other competitor for supremacy, on a 
throne by the side of Shakespeare — to be regarded at least 
as a younger brother of the prince of all the world's 
poets. And yet, of all writers in verse, from Homer 
and Chaucer, his grand prototypes — the former in 
ancient, the latter in modern times — to Byron and 
Wordsworth, his mightiest cotemporary rivals, there is 
not one whom it would be less fair to judge of by mere 
extract than Scott ; for his power lay far more in the 
comprehensiveness of his design, and the general mastery 
of his execution, than in separate excellencies or in de- 
tached beauties. 

It has been a fashion of recent years for some people, 
about as capable of appreciating "Marmion" as the 
" Iliad" or " The Divine Comedy," to underrate Scott's 
poetry, as compared with his prose ; nay, to talk slight- 
ingly of it, as being careless, loose, and superficial. Any- 
thing from dunces ! But will it be credited that Hazlitt, 
who, with all his violent prejudices, certainly was none, 
should set Scott down as " a mere narrative and descrip- 
tive poet, garrulous of the old time ;" or that Leigh Hunt, 
himself a poet, should say of his verse, that it is " a little 
thinking conveyed in a great many words?" Such 
oracular nonsense, however, is not recommended to us 
even as novel. Be it remembered that Waller, also him- 
self a poet, alludes to the author of " Paradise Lost " as 
"one John Milton, a blind old schoolmaster ;" and that 
Voltaire characterises Shakespeare as " an inspired bar- 
barian." Individuals may err, but the great law of the 
world is ever ultimately just; and (mirabile dictu !) 
Milton, Shakespeare, and even Scott, yet survive ! Great 
merit may exist for some time without recognition ; 
and, on the contrary, great temporary popularity may 



128 scott's universality. 

be acquired by what is utterly worthless ; but I chal- 
lenge one instance from the whole history of literature, 
where that popularity, whether slow or sudden, which 
was not deserved, has continued to endure. And as- 
suredly Scott's must, while a single human heart con- 
tinues to beat. 

Of the Novels and Romances, those glowing, glorious, 
and immortal tales, which make us proud to think that 
we are of the same country as their author, it is not my 
province here to speak ; but be it remembered that the 
fame of Scott had penetrated to the ends of the earth as 
a poet, and as a poet only, long before a single page of 
these was written ; that that poetry is now part of the 
stock-literature of the world, and has been translated 
into the languages of almost every civilised nation. It 
would, therefore, be a mere waste of words to discuss a 
question regarding which the great bulk of mankind 
seem to have come to an unhesitating verdict, whatever 
critics have done. So truly mighty, in my opinion, 
was the genius of our countryman, that we are even yet 
too near him to regard it in its just proportions ; and I 
have not abated, by one iota, in the admiration which 
induced me, twenty years ago, to inscribe under his 
portrait these six lines — 

" Brother of Homer, and of him 
On Avon's banks, by twilight dim 
Who di"eamt immortal dreams, and took 
From Nature's hand her storied book : 
Earth hath not seen, Time may not see, 
Till ends his march, such other three." 

From 1805, when the " Lay of the Last Minstrel" 
appeared, we find British poetry in its meridian splen- 
dour, with a host of distinguished aspirants in the field 
— Campbell, Crabbe, Wordsworth, Moore, Southey, Cole- 
ridge, Rogers, Montgomery, not to mention several other 
scarcely less bright names : but Scott far, and deservedly 



LORD BYRON AND PROFESSOR WILSON. 129 

far, beyond all in the race of popularity. In 1812, 
however, something like a restoration of the balance of 
power began to show itself. Two young competitors, 
who were afterwards mightily to influence literature, 
entered the arena — Lord Byron in his " Childe Harold" 
and John Wilson in his " Isle of Palms ;" and it is diffi- 
cult even yet to say which of the two was most distin- 
guished for general scope of mind, for imaginative and 
intellectual power. Byron's was remarkable for its 
passion and intensity ; Wilson's for its catholicity and 
comprehensiveness. The former concentrated its rays 
to a focus ; the latter scattered them abroad like a 
mirror. Had both continued, as they began, to cull 
their laurels from the field of poetry alone, this question 
of natural capacity might have been one of easier solu- 
tion. Byron, persevering to do so, accomplished wonders 
in the course of his unfortunately brief, impassioned, 
impetuous, and chequered after-life. Wilson, on the 
contrary, in little more than four years from his appear- 
ance as a poet — for "The City of the Plague" was pub- 
lished in 1816 — and while still under thirty, may be 
said to have forsaken the muse, and to have turned the 
Nile-like and seemingly inexhaustible current of his 
mind into all the variously divergingchannelsof literature 
and philosophy. With Byron, poetry was all in all ; 
and he wrote not only with amazing power, but with 
amazingfluency — indeed no man, dying at thirty-seven, 
ever wrote so much with such an impress. W^ith Wilson, 
it was only one of the phases of his many-sided mind ; 
and, when he may be said to have left the field, that 
mind was in fact scarcely out of its juvenescence ; as 
demonstrated by its subsequent more matured and re- 
markable achievements. On these, however, I dare not 
at present enter ; and must confine myself merely to a 
few outlinear characteristics of his poetry. 

Unlike Crabbe, who delighted to expatiate on the fail- 
ings and frailties of our nature ; or Byron, whose region 
I 



130 PKOFESSOB WIISON's POETRY. 

of power was in the tempest and darkness of the pas- 
sions ; or Scott, who dazzled by the picturesque rapidity 
of narrative, the muse of Wilson deals only with the 
softer, gentler, purer feelings, with the more refined and 
delicate perceptions. Even in the description of human 
wretchedness and of depravity, he cannot help mingling 
some ethereal and redeeming touches ; mid the roar of 
the troubled waters of the spirit, a still small voice is 
ever head whispering "peace ;" through the wind-swept 
masses of the heavy twilight clouds gloriously peeps out 
the golden evening star — an omen of faith and serenity. 
Wordsworth philosophises on the aspects of nature, 
rather than describes them ; Southey gives the land- 
scape itself with the eye and art of a painter ; Wilson's 
still life seems like the conjurations of a dream — soft, 
silent, beautiful : — 

" Toweriag o'er these beauteous woods, 
Gigantic rocks were ever dimly seen, 
Breaking with solemn grey, the tremulous green. 
And frowning far in castellated pride ; 
While hastening to the ocean, hoary floods 
Sent up a thin and radiant mist between, 
Softening the beauty that it could not hide. 
Lo ! higher still the stately palm-trees rise 
Chequering the clouds with their unbending stems, 
And o'er the clouds, amid the dark-blue skies. 
Lifting their rich unfading diadems." 

By the youthful genius of Wilson it seems to have 
been felt as something like sin to approach the confines 
ofguilt and crime, or to delineate any of the darker 
and more repulsive features of human nature. His 
contemplations are all of the soft and serene — even 
his descriptions are confined to the fair and beautiful; 
the rugged under his touch acquires a moonlight shad- 
ing ; sorrow becomes sanctified ; and the thunderstorm, 
along with its devouring lightning, has ever its ferti- 
lising shower. It is his bathing all his characters in 



ITS PECULIARITIES. 131 

this "purple light of love," which in some measure 
unfits Professor Wilson from shining as a poet of con- 
summate dramatic power — a power which his other 
writings attest his boundless possession of— and which, 
with all the varied beauty which commanded the 
admiration of Byron, Moore, and Jeffrey, makes " The 
City of the Plague" read more like a poem than 
a drama ; in other words, renders it a composition 
embodying sentiment rather than action. Whatever 
may be their peculiar features, whatever the part they 
have to perform, his personages arrange themselves 
into two great classes — those dignified by virtue, and 
those degraded by vice ; the former surpassing mere 
men, and approximating the nature of ministers of 
light; the other fallen from a high estate, yet still 
endowed with many redeeming traits, and, after all, 
scarcely less than " archangels ruined." 

While* in the act of composition, the poet's mind 
seemed to have been worked up to a kind of reverie, 
in which he saw the material world, with its delightful 
valleys and magnificent mountains, its murmuring rivers 
and rolling oceans, its sheeted lakes and umbrageous 
forests outstretched before him as on a vast map, in 
phantasmagorial pageantry. Nor less peculiar were 
his views of the moral physiognomy of man, whom, as 
I have said, he has scarcely the heart to paint as the 
victim of original sin ; but as, even in infancy, return- 
ing in the visions of sleep to an ante-natal heaven. 
Yet he is by no means so great an exclusionist or 
mannerist as Wordsworth, although they have always 
been, and ever will be, regarded as congenial spirits, 
separated by their distinctive qualities of original 
power. In the descriptive portions of his writings, 
however, Wilson is much more exuberant in imagery ; 
and thus more nearly approaches Southey, especially 
in "The Isle of Palms," where his discursive fancy 
luxuriates in regions not unallied in character to those 



132 WILSON AS A DESCRIPTIVE 

exhibited in "Thalaba" and "Kehama." But over 
Southey he has this excellence, that his style is always 
suited to his subject ; he never clothes the trivial in 
the pomp of majestic words, nor debases the lofty by 
meanness of expression, or puerility of epithet. His 
pathos is always of the heart — simple, deep, and touch- 
ing ; and we may say of his poetry, in this respect, as 
he has himself said of another, that 

" The songs be poured were sad and wild ; 
And while they would have soothed a child, 

That soon bestows its tears, 
A deeper pathos in them lay 
That would have moved a hermit grey, 
Bowed down with holy years." 

The grand characteristics of the poetry of Wilson are 
delicacy of sentiment and ethereal elegance of descrip- 
tion. He refines and elevates whatever he touches ; 
and if in his hands common things lose their vulgar 
attributes, they are exchanged by him for something 
better. There is a wild harmony and an untamed 
splendour in his delineation of the aspects of nature ; 
and among its beauties he riots and revels, always pre- 
ferring the soft to the sullen, the gentle to the rugged. 
He is consequently, beyond all other poets, the bard 
of moonlight, in whose "flooding argentry" his muse 
seems never weary of dipping her pinions, or of mar- 
velling at 

" The fleecy clouds when their race is nin, 
That hang in their own beauty blest, 
Mid the calm, that sanctifies the west, 
Around the setting sun." 

Wilson makes a nearer approach, in tone of thought, 
to the Lake School, than to any other great class of 
writers ; nor do his ideas of the philosophical principles 
of composition seem widely different from theirs ; but 



AND SENTIMENTAL POET. 133 

he never offends, like them, by endeavouring to ex- 
tract sentiment from incongruous subjects. He may 
not, in any short effort, have attained the classical 
severity of the " Laodaraia," or the magic wildness of 
the "Christabel ;" but perhaps neither Wordsworth nor 
Coleridge could have so exquisitely painted, vrith such 
consistency throughout, the portrait of Magdalen in 
" The City of the Plague," — so seraphically pure, so 
profoundly tender, so nobly self-devoted ; of one whose 
path on earth is one of angel light — who, like Spenser's 
Una, " makes a sunshine in the shady place," and who, 
when hanging over her dying lover, is thus addressed 
by him — 

" The plumes 

Of thy affectionate bosom meet my heart, 
And all therein is quiet as the snow, 
At breathless midnight." 

The great defect in the earlier poetry of Professor Wilson 
will be found to result from " the fatal facility " with 
which he found expression for his exuberant riches of 
thought and imagery. Life seemed to him a scene of 
enchantments ; earth was a wilderness of sweets ; lan- 
guage syllabled itself into music ; and his imaginings 
thus spontaneously seemed to arrange themselves in 
verse. The welling fountain of his mind, instead of 
requiring to be pumped up, ever superabundantly 
overflowed ; and his poems thus often read more like 
improvisations than compositions. It is difficult to 
say, therefore, whether the years of his sojourn beside 
Windermere were more beneficial or otherwise to his 
fame as a poet. Most assuredly they determined his 
tone of thought, and influenced, perhaps, more than 
he is himself aware of, his habits of looking on and 
regarding man and nature. This position is rendered 
less dubious, from his after works, in w4iich he thought 
and reasoned more decidedly and independently for 



134 "the isle op palms." 

himself ; and who can doubt that he might not have 
from the first diffused through his poetry what he 
afterwards did through his prose, — that emphatic 
vigour, and ever-varying beauty of thought, that 
boundless amplitude of illustration, and that impas- 
sioned torrent-like eloquence — that despotic command 
alike over our reason and our sympathies, never con- 
spicuous save in minds of the very highest order '? 

As a narrative poem, "The Isle of Palms" is some- 
what desultory and sketchy. The story which runs 
through it is a mere slender thread, almost overstrung 
with the flowers of a luxuriant imagination. Its finer 
portions are the voyage, the shipwreck, and the island 
scenery ; its faults lie in its being too ornate — remind- 
ing us of the fine line in an old poet, which Mr Tenny- 
son has since doubtless inadvertently appropriated — 

" You scarce can see the grass for flowers." 

" The City of the Plague " is more definite in outline, 
and more elaborately finished. Southey has thought 
fit to censure the selection of the subject, as being one 
unfit for poetry — himself having chosen several much 
more questionable. Otherwise thought Boccaccio, Dante, 
Moore, and Shelley, Such antecedent cavilling is quite 
absurd ; for praise or blame is almost entirely attachable 
to the mode in which subjects are handled ; and while 
a " Sofa" becomes a great moral engine in the hands of 
a Cowper, a Pedlar shines out a subtle philosopher in 
"The Excursion" of Wordsworth, — the bee having in- 
stinct to extract honey even from foxglove and night- 
shade. So fastidious, on the contrary, was Wilson's 
taste, and so great his horror at revolting details, that 
the principal objection to the poem in question is its 
too uniform tone of almost pastoral gentleness. So 
much so, indeed, that we are often inclined to wish 
that he would plunge into some more troubled element ; 
and had it remained to be written by him in the after 



"lays from fairyland." 135 

maturity of his intellectual strength, I doubt not his 
capability of having amazed as much by his power iu 
awakening terror, and in picturing remorse, as he has 
done in this exquisite youthful effort in subduing to his 
mastery all our finer and gentler sympathies. As a 
narrative, "The City of the Plague" is much better 
proportioned and brought out than " The Isle of Palms." 
From having therein subjected himself to the trammels 
of regular versification, his besetting demon — the discur- 
sive faculty — has less scope, and a feeling is consequently 
conveyed to the reader's mind of more elaborate and 
sustained composition. We have less of that tone of de- 
liration which, in common with the "Lyrical Ballads" 
of Wordsworth, pervades " The Isle of Palms," together 
with a diction more classically pure and severe — yea, 
transparent as crystal. 

In none of his multifarious w^ri tings is the peculiar 
genius of AYilson more exquisitely developed than in 
his *'Lays from Fairyland," where, in a region of spot- 
less innocence, ethereal beauty, and serene repose, it is 
allowed to luxuriate "at its own sweet will." His 
fairies are not those of Michael Drayton, nor Ben Jon- 
son, nor of Shakespeare's " Midsummer Night's Dream," 
nor of Bishop Corbett's " Farewell," nor of the " Young 
Tam Lane of Carterha'," nor of John Leyden's " Brown 
Man of the Muirs," nor of James Hogg's " Old David," 
nor are they Herbert's elves of the Scandinavian mytho- 
logy, 

*' A tiny race, on mischief bent, 
Making men's woes their merriment ; " 

nor the Peris of Thomas Moore's Oriental Paradise ; but 
a distinct creation of his own, beautiful "as atoms of 
the rainbow fluttering round," and pure as the dew in 
the cup of the harebell ; a species of angelic natures, 
sympathising with the sorrows, soothing the ills, and 
rejoicing in the moral triumphs of humanity. Over 



136 "picture of mokning." 

these lays Wilson has iDOiired out the whole exuberant 
riches of his fancy; and he leads us through labyrinths 
of dazzling beauty, where all is innocent, calm, and 
pure — 

" Like a cloudless eve in a sinless world." 

The whole are fine, but perhaps the finest is that 
entitled "Edith and Nora," which contains separate pic- 
tures of "Morning" and of "Evening," as glowing and 
original as any descriptive passages in British poetry. 

This is the morning picture in its serene beauty : — 

" She hath risen up from her morning prayer, 
And chained the waves of her golden hair, 
Hath kissed her sleeping sister's cheek. 
And breathed the blessing she might not speak, 
Lest the whisper should break the dream that smiled 
Round the snow-white brow of the sinless child. 
Her radiant lamb and her purpling dove 
Have ta'en their food from the hand they love ; 
The low deep coo and the plaintive bleat 
In the morning calm, how clear and sweet ! 
Ere the sun has warmed the dawning hours 
She hath watered the glow of her garden flowers. 
And welcomed the hum of the earliest bee 
In the moist bloom working drowsily ! 
Then up the flow of the rocky rill 
She trips away to the pastoral hill ; 
And, as she lifts her glistening eyes, 
In the joy of her heart, to the dewy skies. 
She feels tliat her sainted parents bless 
The life of their orphan shepherdess. 

'Tis a lonely glen ! but the happy child 
Hath friends whom she meets in the morning wild ! 
As on she trips, her native stream, 
Like her, hath awoke from a joyful dream, 
And glides away by lier twinkling feet. 
With a face as bright and a voice as sweet. 
In the osier bank the ouzel sitting 
Hath heard her steps, and away is flitting 



"picture of morning." 137 

From stone to stone, as she glides along, 

Then sinks in the stream with a broken song. 

The lapwiog, fearless of his nest, 

Stands looking round with his delicate crest ; 

For a love like joy is in his cry, 

As he wheels and darts and glances by. 

Is the heron asleep on the silvery sand 
Of his little lake? Lo ! his wings expand 
As a dreamy thought, and withouten dread 
Cloud-like he floats o'er the maiden's head. 
She looks to the birch- wood glade, and lo ! 
There is browsing there the mountain roe, 
"Who lifts up her gentle eyes, nor moves, 
As on glides the form whom all nature loves. 
Having spent in heaven an hour of mirth, 
The lark drops down to the dewy earth, 
And a silence smooths his yearning breast 
In the gentle fold of his lowly nest ; 
The linnet takes up the hymn, unseen 
In the yellow broom, or the bracken green ; 
And now, as the morning hours are glowing. 
From the hillside cots the cocks are crowing, 
And the shepherd's dog is barking shrill, 
From the mist fast rising from the hill, 
And the shepherd's self, with locks of grey, 
Hath blessed the maiden on her way ! 
And now she sees her own dear flock 
On a verdant mound beneath tbo rock, 
All close together in beauty and love, 
Like the small fair clouds in heaven above, 
And her innocent soul, at the peaceful sight, 
Is swimming o'er with a still delight." 

Among the other more elaborate productions of Pro- 
fessor Wilson, are "Unimore, a dream of the High- 
lands;" "The Convict, a dramatic sketch;" "The 
Scholar's Funeral;" "The Angler's Tent;" and an 
"Evening in Furness Abbey." The finest of his lesser 
poems strike me as being the " Address to a Wild 
Deer;" "Lord Ronald's Child >" "The Village Deso- 



138 "evening in furness abbey." 

late ;" "Lines in a Highland Glen ;" and "The Sleep- 
ing Child." 

The following very beautiful extract, from the" Even- 
ing in Furness Abbey," is given as a specimen of Pro- 
fessor Wilson's blank verse. 

" The day goes by, 
On which our soul's beloved dies ! the day 
On which the body of the dead is stretched 
By hands that decked it when alive ; the day 
On which the dead is shrouded, and the day 
Of burial ; — one and all pass by ! The grave 
Grows green ere long ; the churchyard seems a place 
Of pleasant rest ! and all the cottages, 
That keep for ever sending funerals 
Within its gates, look cheerful every one, 
As if the dwellers therein never died, 
And this earth slumbered in perpetual peace. 
For every sort of suffering there is sleep 
Provided by a gi'acious Providence, 
Save that of sin. We must at first endure 
The simple woe of knowing they are dead — 
A soul-sick woe, in which no comfort is, 
And wish we were beside them in the dust ! 
That anguish dire cannot -sustain itself, 
But settles down into a grief that loves 
And finds relief in unreproved tears. 
Then cometh sorrow like a Sabbath ! Heaven 
Sends resignation down, and faith; and last 
Of all, there falls a kind oblivion 
Over the going out of that sweet light 
In which we had our being ; and the wretch, 
Widow'd and childless, laughs in his old age, 
Laughs and is merry, even among the tombs 
Of all his kindred. Say not that the dead 
Are unforgotten in their graves ! for all 
Beneath the sun and moon is transitory ; 
And sacred sorrow, like a shadow, flies, 
As unsubstantial as the happiness 
Whose loss we vainly wept ! " 



"UNIMORE." 139 

"Unimore" is, in some respects, the richest of all its 
author's ^v^itillgs ; and in it his ideas seem to have 
poured upon him like the flood of the Sohvay. Indeed, 
we know not its equal anywhere, in Niagara-like 
copiousness of imagery and diction. Probably this is 
its defect, for it is somehow felt not to be altogether a 
successful poem. There is a lavishness of wealth about 
it, a pomp and prodigality of power, which mars its 
definiteness of tone, as well as its distinctness of outline. 
"We look on its landscapes as through a summer haze, 
or through the silver of moonlight ; and thus its perso- 
nages seem too remote and Ossianic. It abounds in 
magnificent passages ; and visions ninth and tenth — 
"Expiation" and "Retribution" — are replete with 
pathos and solemn beauty. The "Evening in Furness 
Abbey" is more chastened and severe, and is, throughout, 
perhaps the finest specimen of Professor "Wilson's blank 
verse, which has nothing of the ruggedness of Young, 
or the verbosity of Thomson, but breathes a music of 
its own — "a linked sweetness long drawn out" — which 
rivets the ear by its varying cadences ; tones of per- 
suasive softness, now lively, like the breeze in the 
summer tree-tops — now mournful, like the far-off 
thunders of the waterfall. His aversion is the bois- 
terous and the bustling, whether these are to be gleaned 
from themes high or low — from the modernising of 
chivalrous romaunts, or from the fables of classical 
mythology. His delight is in the poetry of still life, — 
the blind man sitting on the way-side stone — the 
effigies in a ruined abbey — the solitude of the midnight 
mountain-ridge — the waveless lake — the autumnal 
moonlight, with the hawk sleeping on the sepulchral 
cairn, among the hoary cannachs of the moor. He 
allows nothing sinful or sullying to mar 

" The radiance of bis gifted soul. 
Where never mists or darkness roll ; 



140 CHARACTERISTICS OF WILSON's POETRY, 

A poet's soul, that flows for ever, 
Eight onwards Hke a noble river, 
Refulgent still, or by its native woods 
Shaded, and running on thro' sunless solitudes. 

In gazing on the picture of a patient " Ass in a snow- 
storm," a thousand bright and beautiful ideas awaken to 
his imagination, of patient suffering and endurance — of 
heroic fortitude in adversity, of serene faith amid the 
evils of life ; and, in describing the cottage of a pious and 
resigned old dame, we are characteristically told that 

" The wreath that stole 
From the rose-tree and jasmine clustering wide. 
O'er all the dwelling's bloomy side. 
Tells that whoe'er doth there abide 
Must have a gentle soul. 
Then gently breathe, and softly tread, 
As if thy steps were o'er the dead ! 
Break not the slumber of the air 
Even by the whisper of a prayer. 
But, in the spirit, let there be 
A silent Benedicite ! 

To Professor Wilson we owe the introduction into our 
literature of a style of criticism at once more philoso- 
phical and more genial — of a criticism which combines 
analytical subtlety and precision with amazing powers 
of imaginative illustration, and which renders his 
essays on Homer, on the Greek Anthology, on Spenser, 
on Milton (yet in MS.), on Wordsworth, on Scott, on 
Burns, on Moore's Byron, and on the English Satirists 
— all written in the same catholic spirit — among the 
finest things in our language. As a delineator of 
Scottish pastoral life — say rather of primitive life and 
manners, as contradistinguished from conventional or 
town life — his " Lights and Shadows," his " Trials of 
Margaret Lindsay," and his "Foresters," seem destined 
to remain unapproached in their peculiar excellencies ; 
but, were it allowable to say so, that eloquence, which Hal- 



THOMAS CAMPBELL. 141 

lam has designated as 'Hhe rush of mighty waters," is 
nowhere to be found in such magnificent power as in the 
" Recreations of Christopher ^'ortl)," and in the Shake- 
spearean " Noctes Ambrosiana?," and " Dies Boreales." 
There are only two other poets, whose career links 
them with the termination of last century, that now 
remain to be noticed: these are James Montgomery 
and Thomas Campbell. The former arose like a beacon- 
light and gradually blazed into a star ; the other burst 
forth at once, like the sun from dawn, in all the efful- 
gence of glory. They have this in common, however, 
that by each a middle course was adopted between the 
chaste severity of the classical model, and the licentious 
freedom of the romantic, which, under the mastery of 
Scott, afterwards became paramount. 

No poet ever made a more brilliant entree than 
Thomas Campbell did, in "The Pleasures of Hope," 
written at twenty-one. In fact, it was regarded as 
completely a marvel of genius, and at once deservedly 
placed its author among the immortals ; for if language 
is capable of embalming thought, and that thought 
consists of pictures steeped in the richest hues of 
imagination, and of sentiments which, in their splen- 
dour and directness, may be regarded as " mottoes of the 
heart," the poem could not possibly ever be forgotten, 
provided the lines of any other writer were destined to 
be held in remembrance. With a daring hand the 
young poet essayed every string of the lyre, and they 
each responded in tones of sublimity, or of beauty and 
pathos. The poem was evidently the product of fine 
genius and intense labour ; for nothing so uniformly 
fine, so sustained in excellence, was ever produced 
without intense labour ; yet so exquisite is the art, 
that the words seem to have dropped into their places, 
and the melody, " like one sweetly played in tune," 
flows on apparently without effort — now wailing 
through the depths of tenderness, and now rising into 



142 " PLEASURES OF HOPE." 

the cloud-lands of imagination with the roll of thunder. 
That traces of juvenility should have been here and 
there discernible in an effort otherwise so high and so 
sustained, is not to be wondered at ; but, even in these 
exuberances, genius and taste were ever predominant, 
while the diction, chaste and pohshed, was yet instinct 
with spirit. An energetic eloquence, which occasionally 
supplied the place of inspiration, and an art which 
could lead Beauty in flowery chains, without depriving 
her step of the air and the graces of Nature, made up 
for all other deficiencies. 

When we look on " The Pleasures of Hope" as a work 
achieved while the author yet stood on the threshold 
of manhood, it is almost impossible to speak of it in 
terms of exaggerated praise ; and whether taking it in 
parts, or as a whole, I do not think I overrate its merits 
in preferring it to any didactic poem of equal length in 
the English language. iS"o poet, at such an age, ever 
produced such an exquisite specimen of poetical mastery 
— that is, of fine conception and of high art combined ; 
but if time matures talent, and the faculties ought to 
strengthen by exercise, Campbell cannot be said to 
have redeemed the pledge given by this earliest of his 
efforts. How could he 1 With the exception of a few 
redundancies of diction, he left himself little to improve 
on, either in matter or manner ; for sentiments tender, 
energetic, impassioned, eloquent, and majestic, are con- 
veyed to the reader in the tones of a music for ever 
varied — sinking or swelling like the harmonies of an 
.^olian lyre — yet ever delightful ; and these are illus- 
trated by pictures from romance, history, or domestic 
life, replete with power and beauty. What could 
possibly excel, in pathos and natural truth, the mother's 
heart-yearnings over her cradled child 1 — the episode of 
the Wanderer leaning over the gate by " the blossomed 
beanfield, and the sloping green," coveting the repose 
and comfort of the hamlet-home beside him ? — the 



"lochiel's warning." 143 

allusion to the melancholy fortunes of the Suicide ? — 
the parting of the Convict with his Daughter ? — or in 
power, " The Descent of Braraa ?" — the apostrophe to the 
wrongs of Poland ? and the allusion to the consummation 
of all things, with which the poem magnificently con- 
cludes ? It is like a long fit of inspiration — a chequered 
melody of transcendent excellence, passage after passage 
presenting only an ever-varying and varied tissue of 
whatever is beautiful and sublime in the soul of man, 
and the aspects of nature. No ungraceful expressions, 
no trite observations, no hackneyed similes, no un- 
natural sentiments, no metaphysical scepticisms break 
in to mar the delightful reverie. The heart is lapped 
in Elysium, the rugged is softened down, and the repul- 
sive hid from view ; nature is mantled in the enchanting 
hues of the poet's imagination, and life seems but a 
tender tale set to music. 

From a poem in every one's memory, extracts were 
superfluous. If any composition could combine more 
energy of sentiment with versification as magnificent, it 
is to be found in the " Lochiel's Warning" of the same 
author. From the mists and commingling shadows of 
the Highland mountains, he has singled out and con- 
jured up two solitary figures, a chieftain and a sooth- 
sayer. The one — a man of this world, daring, deter- 
mined, and a scoffer at danger, full of heroic ardour, 
devoted loyalty, and quenchless faith in the success of 
the desperate cause he resolves to support — is brought 
into picturesque approximation to, and contrast with, 
a being who, although on earth, yet seems not of it — 
who is wrapt up in visionary thoughts and shadowy 
abstractions — whose fevered fantasies overleap Nature's 
boundaries, and who declares that 

" Man cannot cover what God would reveal ; 
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before." 



144 Campbell's fastidiousness. 

There is a mysterious solemnity in all he utters, as if 
his voice was only the response of an internal oracle, 
which overhoils with tempestuous energy, and which 
has its utterance through him. His soul is illumined 
with the corruscations of prophetic light, by which he 
has glimpses into the gloom of that Futurity whose 
chambers shut and open before him. The resolution of 
the chieftain is, however, immovable 

'^ as the rock of the ocean that stems 
A thousand wild waves on the shore." 

Although not unaware that Doubt, Darkness, and 
Ruin encompass the perilous enterprise in which he is 
about irremediably to embark, he scorns the adverse 
omens of the seer, indignantly exclaiming — 

" Down, soothless insulter ! I trust not the tale ; 
For never shall Albyn a destiny meet, 
So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat ; 
Tho' my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore 
Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, 
Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, 
While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, 
Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low 
With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe ; 
And leaving in battle no blot on his name. 
Look proudly to heaven from the deathbed of fame." 

Campbell has there concentrated, in a short poem, as 
much vigour of conception, grandeur of description, 
and originality of illustrative imagery, as would, in 
ordinary hands, have been deemed adequate to replenish 
volumes. It is throughout sterling ore, thrice refined 
from all alloy in the furnace of taste. 

Having achieved such a triumph as " The Pleasures 
of Hope," and measuring himself by the high standard 
of that composition, it is not wonderful that Campbell 



" O'CONNOR'S CHILD : " 145 

was chary about hazarding his acquired reputation, 
or that his after appearances were like his own "angel 
visits," not only "short, but far between." Yet, from 
year to year, some stray lyric gem attested to the public 
the unabated fire of his genius, and led them on to 
expect with delight the meridian of a day which had 
been ushered in by a dawn so gloriously brilliant. 

It was asserted by the late Lord Jeffrey, that the 
great writers of this age are in nothing more remarkable 
than the very fearlessness of their borrowing. We 
could point out a cento of brilliant things in Campbell 
— who forms certainly no exception to this general 
charge — for which he has been indebted to a discrimi- 
nating taste and a retentive memory ; but then, as 
with Coleridge, he has conjoined a distinctness, an 
originality, and a superiority of view quite his own, 
together with that polish which is the peculiar charm 
of all his writings. He might admire excellencies in 
others, and imitate what he admired ; but, beyond that, 
Campbell had a distinct path of his own, along " a wild 
unploughed, untrodden shore." He possessed the 
invention of true genius ; and sought for and owned no 
prototype in " Lochiel's Warning," in " Hohenlinden," 
in "The Battle of the Baltic," in "Reullura," in "The 
Last Man," or in " O'Connor's Child," the diamond of 
his casket of gems. 

In this last-named poem Campbell opened up a vein 
ofthought and imagery, to which nothing in our pre- 
ceding literature has the remotest resemblance, except- 
ing, perhaps, the lyrical tales of Crabbe — " The Hall of 
Justice," and "Sir Eustace Grey," The resemblance, 
however, if there be any, is very slight ; and it is highly 
problematical if Campbell had them at all in his eye 
during the composition of this the most thoroughly 
inspired of all his writings. 

" O'Connor's Child" opens in a strain of deep but chas- 
tened melancholy ; and the vague wildness of remote 

K 



146 EXTRACTS FROM IT. 

tradition is blent with the refinement, peculiar only to 
modern times, in its imagery — 

" Placed in the foxglove and the moss, 
Behold a parted warrior's cross ! 
That is the spot, where evermore 
The lady, at her shieling door, 
Enjoys that, in communion sweet. 
The living and the dead can meet, 
For lo ! to love-lorn fantasy, 
The hero of her heart is nigh ! " 

Before the scene opens, the catastrophe has been con- 
summated. The lovely daughter of a noble bouse has 
been left to wander, in frenzied desolation, the historian 
of her own sad tale. For the love of Connocht Moran, 
" her belted forestere," she had forsaken her palace- 
home to roam the wilds ; while the disgraced pride of 
ancestry urges on her infuriated brothers to seek her 
lover's blood — and destruction thus comes like the 
simoom. 

" AYhen all was hushed at eventide, 
I heard the baying of their beagle ; 
' Be hushed ! ' my Connocht Moran cried, 
' 'Tis but the screaming of the eagle.' 
Alas ! 'twas not the eyrie's sound. 
Their bloody bands had tracked us out. 
Up-listening starts our couchant hound — 
And hark ! again, that nearer shout 
Brings faster on the murderers. 
' Spare — spare him, Brazil, Desmond fierce ! ' 
In vain, no voice the adder charms ; 
Theh weapons crossed my sheltering arms ; 
Another's sword has laid him low, 
Another's, and another's. 
And every hand that dealt the blow, 
Ah me ! it was a brother's ! 
Yes ! when his moanings died away, 
Their iron hands had dug the clay, 



"the flower of love." 147 

And o'er his burial turf they trod — 
And I beheld, oh God, oh God ! 
His life-blood oozing from the sod !" 

Such poetry requires no comment. When "The 
Flower of Love," shut up within tlie embattled turret 
of her ancestral castle, sees her brothers, armed for 
war, about to depart with the banner of her sires in 
the midst, she thus exclaims, in prophetic fury — 

" Sooner guilt the ordeal brand 
Shall grasp unhurt, than ye shall hold 
The banner with victorious hand 
Beneath a sister's curse unrolled. 
Oh, stranger, by my country's loss, 
And by my love, and by the cross, 
I swear I never could have spoke 
The curse, that sever'd Nature's yoke, 
But that a spirit o'er me stood, 
And fired me with the wrathful mood ; 
And frenzy to my heart was given 
To speak the malison of heaven. 
They would have crossed themselves, all mute : 
They would have prayed to burst the spell ; 
But at the stamping of my foot 
Each hand down powerless fell ! 

* And go to Athunrie ! ' I cried ; 

* High lift the banner of your pride ! 
But know that where its sheet unrolls, 
The weight of blood is on your souls ! 
Go where the havoc of your kerne 
Shall float as high as mountain fern ! 
Men shall no more your mansion know ! 
The nettles on your hearth shall grow ! 
Dead, as the green oblivious flood 
That mantles by your walls, shall be 
The glory of O'Connor's blood ! 

Away ! — away to Athunrie ! 

Where downward, when the sun shall fall, 

The raven's wing shall be your pall ! 



148 " GERTRUDE OF WYOMING : " 

And not a vassal shall unlace 
The vizor from your dying face ! ' 
A bolt that overhung our dome, 
Suspended till my curse was given. 
Soon as it passed these lips of foam, 
Pealed in the blood-red heaven." 

The greatest effort of Campbell's genius, however, 
was his " Gertrude of Wyoming ; " nor is it likely ever 
to be excelled in its own peculiar style of excellence. 
It is superior to " The Pleasures of Hope " in the only 
one thing in which that poem could be surpassed — 
purity of diction ; while in pathos, and in imaginative 
power, it is no whit inferior. The beauties of Gertrude, 
however, are of that unobtrusive kind, that, for the 
most part, they must be sought for. Its imagery is 
so select as to afford only indices to trains of thought. 
It "touches a spring, and lo ! what myriads rise ! " If 
we add to this, that, as a story, Gertrude is particularly 
defective, the circumstances will be made palpable which 
have operated against the popularity of a composition 
so thoroughly exquisite. The versification of the poem 
is intricately elaborate, the diction fastidiously select, 
and the incidents, as I have just hinted, less brought 
out than left to be imagined ; as, for instance, where, 
in one stanza, Henry TTaldegrave is the infantine com- 
panion of Gertrude, and, in the next, we are told of his 
arrival from foreign travel, ere we are dimly apprised 
that he had ever set out from home. Weighed, however, 
with the real excellencies of the poem, these and other 
minor blemishes — as inaccuracies in natural history — 
are " mere spots in the sun," and are amply counter- 
balanced by the Elysian description of Wyoming, with 
which the poem opens — although its tone occasionally 
more than reminds us of Thomson's "Castle of Indo- 
lence," and its imagery of Wordsworth's "Ruth;" — 
the arrival of Outalissi, " the eagle of his tribe," with 
the white boy in his hand, " like morning brought by 



ITS HIGH EXCELLENCIES. 149 

night ;" the landscape surrounding the home of Albert, 
so like " the pleasant land of drowsy head ; " the 
loves of Henry and Gertrude, so touching in their 
sweet sincerity, and their rapturous walks amid the 
shadowy majesty of the primeval Pennsylvanian 
forests; the gathering and picturesque grouping of the 
motley warriors on the fatal eve of battle ; the death, 
of the patriarchal Albert, and the dying address of the 
daughter to her husband, so full of pathos and nature ; 
and the energetically sublime invocation of the Indian 
chief, w^ith which the scenes close. Interspersed, there 
are also delineations of scenery which display the very 
highest powers, and that minute fidelity which indicates 
the fine and accurate observer. Campbell did not work 
like Wordsworth, or Crabbe, or Southey, by touches 
repeated and repeated, till the minims make up a 
whole, but by sweeping lines and bold master-strokes. 
The following few words, for instance, convey a whole 
and almost boundless prospect to the mind : — 

" At evening Alleghany views, 
Through ridges burning in her western beam, 
Lake after lake interminably gleam." 

The following single stanza is full of a similar ma- 
jesty. It is a picture not only finely conceived, but 
faultlessly executed : — 

*' Anon some wilder portraiture he draws ; 
Of nature's savage glories he would speak, — 
The loneliness of earth that overawes, 
When, resting by some tomb of old Cacique, 
The lama-driver on Peruvia's peak 
Nor living voice nor motion marks around. 
But storks that to the boundless forest shriek. 
Or wild-cane arch, high flung o'er gulf profound, 
That fluctuates when the storms of El Dorado sound." 

Turn from the desolation, the vastness, and wildness 



150 Campbell's lyrics. 

of this, to a delineation of morning in five lines. It 
has the freshness and beauty of Claude Lorraine : — 

" The morning wreath had bound her hair, 
While yet the wild-bee trod in spangling dew ; 
While boatmen carolled to the fresh-blown air, 
And woods a horizontal shadow threw, 
And early fox appeared in momentary view." 

Of Campbell's highest lyrics it would be impossible 
to speak in terms of exaggerated praise ; and in them 
more especially be has succeeded in engrafting the fresh 
wildness of the romantic school on the polished elegance 
of the classic. Whether we regard originality of con- 
ception, artistic skill, brilliancy of execution, vividness 
of illustration, moral pathos, or that impassioned energy 
which makes description subservient to feeling and sen- 
timent, it would be difficult, from the far-off days of 
Pindar and Tyrtaeus, down to those of Collins and 
Gray, to point to anything finer or grander, or, to use 
the phrase of Sir Philip Sidney, that more "rouses 
the heart like the sound of a trumpet," than his 
"Mariners of England," his "Battle of the Baltic," 
his "Lines on Alexandria," his " Hohenlinden," and 
his "Lochiel's Warning;" while, for mellow pathos, 
for picturesque touches of nature, for phrases of magical 
power, and words or single lines that, within themselves, 
concentrate landscapes, he has lent a charm all his own 
to "The Exile of Erin," the "Lines in Argyleshire," 
"The Soldier's Dream," "The Turkish Lady," "The 
Grave of a Suicide," " The Last ]\ran," " Lord Ullin's 
Daughter," " Glenara," "Wild Flowers," and "The 
Rainbow." 

Campbell, like Coleridge, left utterly unfulfilled the 
promise of his youth ; for he did few things worthy 
of his fame after " Gertrude," and that was published 
when he was just thirty-two. His magnificent May 
had no corresponding September; his " Theodrics " 



** MARTIAL STANZAS." 151 

and " Pilgrims of Glencoe " were the mere lees of his 
genius, and utterly unworthy — more especially the last 
— of his former self. Pity they ever saw the light ; 
and better for him had it been— knowing he had done 
what he had — to have hung up his harp, and silently 
lingered out his life in a secure consciousness of poetic 
immortality. 

Here are a few bright droppings from Campbell's 
patriotic vein. The stanzas were written to commemo- 
rate Corunna, and the death-day of Moore. 



" Pledge to the much-loved land that gave us birth ! 
Invincible, romantic Scotia's shore ! 
Pledge to the memory of her parted worth ! 
And, first among the brave, remember Moore ! 

And be it deemed not wrong that name to give 
In festive hours, which prompts the patriot's sigh ! 

Who would not envy such as Moore to live ? 
And died he not as heroes wish to die ? 

Yes ! though too soon attaining glory's goal, 
To us his bright career too short w^as given ; 

Yet in a mighty cause his phoenix soul 
Rose on the flames of victory to heaven ! 

Peace to the mighty dead ! our bosom thanks 
In sprightlier strains the living may inspire ! 

Joy to the chiefs that lead old Scotia's ranks 
Of Roman garb, and more than Roman fire. 

Triumphant be the Thistle, still unfurled, 

Dear symbol wild ! on freedom's hills it grows, 

Where Fingal stemmed the tyrants of the world, 
And Roman eagles found unconquered foes ! 

Is there a son of generous England here, 
Or fervid Erin ? — he with us shall join, 

To pray that in eternal union dear, 

The Rose, the Thistle, and the Shamrock twine ! 



152 Campbell's writings : 

Types of a race who shall the invader scorn. 
As rocks resist the billows round their shore — 

Types of a race who shall to time unborn 

Their country leave un conquered as of yore ! " 

The writings of Thomas Campbell are distinguished 
by their elegance and their perspicuousness, by their 
straightforward manliness and their high tone of moral 
sentiment. They abound with original imagery, with 
lofty aspirations after the true and beautiful, and with 
ideas that, from their prominent beauty, may be almost 
said to be tangible. Taste, however — the perfect equi- 
poise of his fine faculties — was the source of that mas- 
tery w4iich controlled and harmonised all. Hence he 
had concentration ; for his poetry was like a weeded 
garden, and every blossom that " dedicated its beauty 
to the sun " was placed in the situation most appro- 
priate to its perfection. His nervous manliness never 
degenerated into coarseness ; and judgment ever pruned 
the wings of his imagination and fancy. His delicacy 
was free from affectation, and his enthusiasm never 
'' o'erstepped the modesty of nature." Even when im- 
pelled by the whirlwind of inspiration, the helm obeyed 
his hand, and the bark ploughed on, amid the roaring 
of the waves, towards the haven of her destination. 
Few poets combined, in an equal degree, such felicity 
of conception with such perfect handling — such vigour 
of thought Avith such delicacy of expression ; yet this 
delicacy was as free from mawkishness as his sentiment 
from metaphysical obscurity — the rock on which so 
many have foundered. He could not rest self-satisfied 
until he had placed each object in its fairest point of 
view — until he had harmonised all his separate mate- 
rials with his general design. While in the selection of 
his topics he was fastidious, in his treatment of them 
he was alike daring and original — presenting us either 
with new and striking images, or with familiar ones 
unexpectedly placed in a novel aspect ; and whatever 



THEIR GENERAL CHARACTER. 153 

these were, he laboured until he had imparted to them 
all the graces of thought and language. His usual 
success resulted from bold generalisations; but, when 
occasions offered, he descended to the minute with an 
elegance quite apart from tedious trifling. His genius 
is characterised by bursts of abrupt lyrical enthusiasm ; 
it is like his own " Andes, giant of the western star," his 
"wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore," his "aye 
as if for death a lonely trumpet wailed," his panther 
" howling amid that wilderness of fire," his " storks that 
to the boundless forest shriek," his " pyramid of fire," his 
" death-song of an Indian chief." He took, not to by- 
lanes, as many have done, for singularity's sake, when 
the fair broad highway was before him. He preferred 
the classical to the quaint, the obvious to the obscure ; 
and the general sympathies of mankind to an " audience 
fit though few," which none, I presume, ever did, who 
could not help it. In the management of his subject 
he either grappled with it, as Hercules did with the 
Lernsean hydra ; or tenderly blent all its elements into 
harmonious beauty, as if encircling it with the fabled 
cestus of Cytheraea. 

Much of what has been just said regarding Thomas 
Campbell, applies also — although, perhaps, not with 
equal force — to James Montgomery ; but their courses 
towards poetical eminence have been in the inverse to 
each other. At the time of life when the day-star of 
Campbell's genius, having past its early meridian, was 
already going down, Montgomery had scarcely signalised 
himself, and that only by unequal compositions, which 
he has since readily excelled. Coleridge and Campbell 
were thus at one : Montgomery, on the other hand, 
resembled Milton, Dryden, and Rogers, whose best 
poetry was that of their grey hairs. 

" The Wanderer of Switzerland," Montgomery's ear- 
liest performance, could scarcely have attained its popu- 
larity, either from its subject, which is local, or its 



154 JAMES MONTGOMERY. 

treatment, which verges on common-place, or from its 
poetical merits, which are not of the rarest ; but along 
with it some fine lyrics were published, high-toned in 
sentiment and feeling, which bespoke the true touch, 
and found an echo in many hearts. " The West Indies," 
a poem written in commemoration of the abolition of 
the slave trade by the British legislature, was also an 
unequal although a much superior production ; and has 
a raciness of manner, a beauty of thought, and occa- 
sionally an indignant vehemence of expression about it, 
which, coupled with the nature of its subject, deservedly 
won for it a wide acceptation. Had it been the work 
of his later years, Montgomery would have assumed a 
higher and more exulting tone, and made it a jubilee 
hymn, instead of its being, what in its least inspired 
portions it is, an exposition, from local and historical 
sources, of the horrors of that abominable traffic ren- 
dered into elegant verse. What he has done, however, 
he has done well ; and its finest passages and apos- 
trophes — as that on love of countr}' — could only have 
been written by a genuine poet ; for it is but to a cer- 
tain height in heaven that the vulture can maintain his 
semblance to the eagle. Somewhat loosely put together 
as it here and there is, it sparkles throughout with gems 
of thought, which are appropriately and beautifully set, 
yet lose little of their lustre when removed from their 
places, and shine by their own intrinsic light. It is a 
poem, however, rather of the feelings than of the fancy, 
and has too much to do with stern facts to be through- 
out delightful ; and in this respect is inferior to the 
other three larger works which succeeded it — *'The World 
before the Flood," "Greenland," and "The Pelican 
Island " — the two former likewise in the heroic couplet, 
the last in a peculiar kind of blank verse, which has 
much less reference to that of Milton, Thomson, Cowper, 
or Wordsworth, than to our early dramatic writers, and 
with all their force, freedom, and ease ; in many parts 



HIS LONGER POEMS. 156 

more resembling an improvisation than a composi- 
tion. 

Of these three last mentioned performances, each may 
be said to be successively in advance of the other in 
development of poetical power and resources. In the 
first, the description of the antediluvian patriarchs in 
their valleys of bliss — the true Arcadia — allows him a 
free and full range for his pleasant fancies ; and he 
luxuriates in describing the lai'ge happiness they enjoyed 
ere invaded by the giant descendants of Cain. Among 
its finer delineations are the innocent loves of Javan 
and Zillah, the translation of Enoch, and the death-scene 
of our first parent Adam. The prevailing fault of the 
poem is a monotony and languor arising from its length, 
and the deficiency in stirring incident — in short, from 
the preponderance of description over action ; and this 
notwithstanding its being written throughout with 
great care, and studded over with passages of uncommon 
elegance and beauty. 

" Greenland" is shorter, but perhaps still more highly 
finished. The subject being quite congenial to the taste, 
feelings, and genius of the author, is written con amove, 
and the composition is pervaded by a noble but subdued 
enthusiasm. The voyage of the Moravian missionaries 
to the inhospitable Arctic regions is finely described ; 
and their appearance there, under the touches of his pen, 
is as if angels of hght had been commissioned to walk 
for a season amid the darkness and desolation of the 
realms of frost and snow. But by far its finest section 
is that commemorative of the depopulation of the Nor- 
wegian colonies on the east coast of Greenland, and its 
final abandonment by Europeans, from the increasing 
inclemency of the winters about the beginning of the 
fifteenth century. Montgomery here rises above himself 
in passionate earnestness, and in force of description ; 
and by that canto alone would have distinctly stamped 
himself a poet of original power. 



156 "the pelican island." 

Essaying a still loftier flight, the whole of his imagi- 
native strength was garnered up to be put forth in " The 
Pelican Island;" nor was his attempt like that of 
Icarus. It must he placed at the head of his works, 
whether "we regard it as a whole, or in insulated 
passages ; for it exhibits a richer command of language, 
and its imagery is collected from a much more extended 
field of thought and research, than any of its predeces- 
sors. It is also more remarkable for careful artistic 
adaptation of its parts to the general design, while its 
situations are more varied in their aspects, its sug- 
gestions more original, and its speculations more bold 
and daring. Indeed, Montgomery repeatedly trenches 
on the sublime in several parts of " The Pelican Island ;" 
as in his descriptions of the formation of the coral reefs, 
and of the aspect of the southern heaven, with its 
sparkling constellations, and its emblematic cross — 
unseen by European poets save in their dreams of the 
grand and beautiful. 

" Night, silent, cool, transparent, crowned the day ; 
The sky receded farther into space. 
The stai"s came lower down to meet the eye, 
Till the whole hemisphere, alive with light, 
Twinkled from east to west by one consent. 
The constellations round the Arctic pole, 
That never set to ixs, here scarcely rose, 
But in their stead, Oi'ion through the north 
Pursued the Pleiads ; Sirius, with his keen 
Quick scintillations, in the zenith reigned. 
The South unveiled its glories ; there the Wolf, 
With eyes of lightning, watch'd the Centaur's spear ; 
Through the clear hyaline, the Ship of Heaven 
Came sailing from Eternity ; the Dove 
On silver pinions, wing'd her peaceful way ; 
There, at the footstool of Jehovah's throne, 
The Altar, kindled from his presence, blazed ; 
There, too, all else excelling, meekly shone 



MONTGOMERY'S LYRICS. 157 

The Cross — the symbol of redeeming love. 
The heavens declared the glory of the Lord, 
The firmament displayed his handiwork." 

Undeniable, however, as are the merits of Montgo- 
mery's longer and more ambitious works, and highly- 
creditable as these are to his enterprise and achieve- 
ment, it is as a lyrical poet that he has won his freshest 
laurels, and will be best remembered ; for on these he 
has the most unreservedly shed the peculiar beauty of 
his genius. He is there himself, and can be confounded 
with no other: and few that have read can readily 
forget his pieces severally entitled " The Common 
Lot," " Night," " Prayer," " The Grave," " Aspirations 
of Youth," " Incognita," " Bolehill Trees," " Make Way 
for Liberty," " A Walk in Spring," and " The Alps, 
a Reverie." With the exceptions, perhaps, of Moore, 
Campbell, and Hemans, I doubt indeed if an equal 
number of the lyrics of any other modern poet have so 
completely found their way to the national heart, there 
to be enshrined in hallowed remembrance. Among the 
very finest of these are " Night" and " Prayer." I give 
the last : — 

*' Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Uttered or unexpressed ; 
The motion of a hidden fire 
That trembles in the breast. 

Prayer is the burden of a sigh. 

The falling of a tear ; 
The upward glancing of an eye, 

When none but God is near. 

Prayer is the simplest form of speech 

That infant lips can try ; 
Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach 

The Majesty on high. 



158 "prater." 

Prayer is the Chiistian's vital breath, 

The Christian's native air ; 
His watchword at the gates of death — 
* He enters heaven by prayer. 

Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, 

Returning from his ways ; 
While angels in their songs rejoice 

And say, ' Behold, he prays.' 

The saints, in prayer, appear as one, 

In word, and deed, and mind, 
When with the Father and his Son, 

Theu' fellowship they find. 

Nor prayer is made on earth alone : 

The Holy Spirit pleads ; 
And Jesus, on the eternal throne, 

For sinners intercedes. 

Oh Thou ! by whom we come to God, 

The life, the truth, the way ; 
The path of prayer thyself hast trod — 

Lord, teach us how to pray." 

One great merit which may be claimed for James 
Montgomery is, that he has encroached on no man's 
property as a poet ; he has staked oj0F a portion of the 
great common of literature for himself, and cultivated 
it according to his own taste and fancy. In his appro- 
priated garden, you find herbs and sweet-smelling 
flowers — the rosemary, and the thyme, and the mar- 
joram — the lily, the pink, and the pansy— the musk- 
rose and the gilly-flower ; but you have no staring 
sunflowers, no Brobdignag hollyhocks, no flaunting 
dahlias — for he clings to a simplicity that disdains 
ostentatious ornament ; and thus many are apt to think 



MONTGOMERY AS A SACRED POET. 159 

tlie stream of his inspiration shallow, simply hecause it 
is pellucid. It is not easy to characterise his poetry, so 
as to convey any adequate idea of its excellencies — except 
by saying, in negatives, that it shuns all glare, glitter, 
and eccentricity ; and that it cannot be expected to find 
admirers among those who bow down at the shrines of 
exaggeration or false taste. 

Some have asserted — truly most idly — that the fame 
of Montgomery was founded on, and has been supported 
by, his sectarianism. If so, the Moravians are a much 
more potent body than they are generally accredited to 
be. However the applause of a class may have origin- 
ally given an impetus to his popularity, from the very 
first, as his works attest — and they are full of faith, hope, 
and charity — he wrote not for a section, but for man- 
kind ; and well has Professor Wilson remarked, in 
reference to this very topic, that " had Mr Montgomery 
not been a true poet, all the religious magazines in the 
world would not have saved his name from forgetful- 
ness and oblivion. He might have flaunted his day like 
the melancholy poppy — melancholy in all its ill-scented 
gaudiness ; but, as it is, he is like the rose of Sharon, 
whose balm and beauty shall not wither, planted on the 
banks of ' that river whose streams make glad the citv 
of the Lord.'" 

One word, in conclusion, regarding religious poetry — 
against which there have been some able and conscien- 
tious objectors. Nor have their reasons been quite 
groundless. 

The most sublime poetry, by far, to which the world 
has ever listened, is that of the Hebrew. It is immea- 
surably beyond all Greek and all Roman inspiration ; 
and yet its sole theme is the Great Jehovah, and the 
ways and wonders of His creation. All is simply grand, 
nakedly sublime ; and man before his Maker, even in 
the act of adoration, is there made to put his lips in the 
dust. So have done the great bards of succeeding times 



160 LEGITIMATE AIMS OF POETRY. 

— Milton, and Young, and Thomson, and Cowper, and 
Pollok. In approaching the shrine they take off the 
sandals from, their feet, well knowing that the spot 
whereon thej stand is holy ground. But all not being 
great, alas ! all do not so behave ; and hence, in common 
hands, sacred poetry has become, not without reason, a 
subject of doubt and discussion ; for in them error has 
dared to counsel infallibility — ignorance to fathom 
Omniscience — and narrow- tninded prejudice to circum- 
scribe the bounds of mercy — the human irreverently 
to approach the Divine — and " fools to rush in where 
angels fear to tread." 

Genius, therefore, is not to be regarded by the gifted 
as a toy. It is a dread thing. It is like a sharp two- 
edged sword placed in the hands of its possessor, for 
much of good or of evil ; and the results are exactly as 
it is wielded, whether to the right hand or to the left. 
To claim exclusive moral — say rather immoral — privi- 
leges for men of genius, as men of genius, is absurd. 
They ask none, they need none. Eccentricity and error 
may be coupled with genius, but do not necessarily arise 
from it — as Shakespeare, Milton, and Scott have lived to 
illustrate. They spring from quite another source, for 
they are found a thousand times oftener without such 
companionship than with it, and verify the epigram of 
Prior — 

" Yes ! every poet is a fool, 

By demonstration Ned can show it : 
Happy could Xed's inverted rule 
Prove every fool to be a poet." 

Not only should the man of genius be measured by a 
high standard, but exactly in proportion to the extent 
and elevation of his powers is he doubly or triply ac- 
countable. We may rest assured that there is no dis- 
crepancy between the great and the good, for that would 
be quite an anomaly in the Creator's government of the 



USE AND ABUSE OF GENIUS. 161 

universe. Only the silly and the shallow, the poetaster, 
the pretender, and the unprincipled, will seek to skulk 
behind such a transparent bulwark. Almost all the 
great poets of ancient and modern times (a few rare 
exceptions only go to strengthen the rule) have been 
men who reverenced Heaven and respected themselves, 
nobly fulfilling their destinies : those — in the pleasant 
valleys opening up innocent fountains of ever-new 
delight, for solacing the depressed, and refreshing 
the weary : these — labouring through the defiles of the 
difficult mountains for flowers of beauty and gems of 
price, unselfishly and unreservedly to be at once thrown 
into the general treasury-store of humanity. 



LECTUEE lY. 

The succession of Lord Byron to the poetical supremacy. — The energy of his 
genius, and its different phases. — Childe Harold, Turkish and other Tales. — 
His Pantheistic views. — Extracts from Prisoner of Chillon ; from Giaour ; 
from Bride of Ahydos ; from Farasina ; and from Beppo. — Verses to Mary. 
— BjTon and Burns. — Bishop Heber, Palestine and Hymns. — Dean Milman, 
Dramatic Poems, and Samor. — Elepiac Verses. — Dr Croly, Paris, Sebastian, 
Gems from Antique. — Honourable W. Herbert, Icelandic Translations, 
Helga, and Attila ; specimen, I\orthern Spri7ig. "William Tennant, Anster 
Fair and other poems: extract, Maggy Lauder. — Frere's Whistlecraft ; 
specimen. — Barhamand Hood. — Domestic Tragedy from Ingoldsby Legends. 
— Theodore Hook, his amazing powers of improvisation. — James and Horace 
Smith,Rejected Addresses. — Thomas Moore. — Anacreon, Odes andEpistles, 
Satires, Lalla Rookh, Loves of the Angels, Irish Melodies. — lines at Colws. 
— The Toung May Moon. — Burns and Muore. — Man not cosmopolite ; 
national poetry. 

Up to the time at which this Lecture commences, the 
writings of Wordsworth had been more talked about 
than read ; the fame of Coleridge was limited to a small 
circle of affectionate admirers ; the star of Campbell was 
still in the ascendant — the cynosure of eves with the 
select ; Crabbewas quietly but industriously cultivating 
his own homely peculiar field ; while the tide of popu- 
larity flowed triumphantly along with Scott, whose 
fresh free song all the aspiring young bards imitated, like 
a forest of mocking-birds. Open their tomes where you 
listed, let it have been at page one, or page one hundred, 
there were nothing but moss-trooper and marauder — 
baron bold and gay ladye — hound in leash and hawk 



THE POETIC ORIENTAL DYNASTY. 163 

in hood — bastion huge and grey chapelle — henchmen 
and servitors — slashed sleeves and Spanish boots — 
steel-barred aventayles and nodding morions — "guns, 
trumpets, blunderbusses, drums, and thunder." The 
chivalrous epics of Scott are indeed glorious things — full 
of vivacity, energy, variet}^, and nature — and will endure 
while a monument of human genius remains ;b ut their 
thousand and one imitations have vanished — as I have 
before mentioned — like the clouds of yesterday. When 
the mighty master himself, instead of satiating the pub- 
lic, took to another field, that of prose, and left poetry 
to younger men, arose the Oriental dynasty, under the 
prime-viziership of Lord Byron ; and down went Wil- 
liam of Deloraine, and Wat of Buccleuch, before Hassan 
and Selim, Conrad and Medora, the Jereed men and 
the Janissaries, and all the white-turbaned, wide-trou- 
sered, hyacinthine-tressed, pearl-cinctured, gazelle-eyed, 
opium-chewing, loving and hating sons and daughters 
of Mahomet. Every puny rhymester called the moon 
"Phingari," daggers " Ataghans," drummers " Tambour- 
gis," tobacco-pipes " Chibouques," and women " Houris." 
It was up with the crescent and down with the cross ; 
and in as far as scribbling at least went, every poet was 
a detester of port and pork, and a renegade from all 
things Christian. Nay, even something like the per- 
sonal appearance of Childe Harold was aspired at ; and 
each beardless bardling, w^hether baker's, butcher's, or 
barber's apprentice, had his hair cut and his shirt-collar 
turned down a la Bi/ron. Midshipmen perseveringly 
strove to look Conrad-like and misanthropic ; lawyers' 
clerks affected the most melancholious mood ; and half- 
pay ensigns, contemptuous of county police or the pub- 
lic safety, — 

"with the left heel insidiously aside, 

Provoked the caper that they seemed to chide : " 

and on hacks, hired by the hour, adventured imitations 
of Mazeppa at a hand-gallop along the king's highway. 



164 LORD byron's early poems. 

The premature appearance of George Gordon, Lord 
Byron, a minor, and his crushing b}^ Lord Brougham, 
in the Edinburgh Review, are matters too \vell known to 
need anything here beyond mere allusion ; and the 
"English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," his satire in 
" retort courteous," may be passed over — vigorous and 
venomous as it was — in an equally summary manner. 
Even in the early volume, however, mixed up with 
much crudeness and juvenility, there were undoubted 
sparkles of that genius which afterwards astonished the 
world; and in the maturer satire — rash, presumptuous, 
and ill-judged as it was — indications of an ardent tem- 
perament and masculine intellect. But these glimpses 
w^ere heliacal : the true morning of Byron's genius 
manifested itself in "Childe Harold," — a work of tran- 
scendent power and beauty, rich in its descriptions, 
passionate in its tones, majestic in its aspirings, sublime 
in its very doubts — which at once stamped his reputa- 
tion as a great and prevailing poet. Its effect was 
electric — its success was instantaneously recognised. 
The star of his popularity shot with a burst to the 
zenith ; and, as he himself expresses it, " I got up one 
fine morning, and found myself famous." 

The poetry of Byron may be divided into three great 
sections ; each pretty distinctly different from the other, 
in regard alike to subject and to manner. The first, com- 
mencing with the opening cantos of " Childe Harold," 
includes "The Giaour," " The Bride of Abydos," " The 
Corsair," "Lara," the lyrics to "Thyrsa," and some 
minor pieces. The second comprehends " The Siege of 
Corinth" and "Parisina," "Mazeppa," the concluding 
cantos of "Childe Harold," " The Prisoner of Chillon," 
" The Lament of Tasso," and " Manfred." The third, 
starting with " Beppo," and comparatively dozing or 
prosing through the tragedies and mysteries, charac- 
teristically terminated with "Don Juan." Sad that it 
should have been so — but " what is writ is writ." 



THE THREE SECTIONS OF HIS POETRY. 165 

In all the works of the first section, we have the his- 
tory of an individual mind, as regarded in different 
phases ; — for Harold, the Giaour, Selim, Conrad, and 
Lara, are all and each the same person, placed in some 
novel and romantic situation. Nor widely different is 
the renegade Alp, or the reckless Mazeppa, or the guilty 
Hugo. But the compositions in which the three last- 
named characters occur, indicate a transition state 
between those before mentioned and those which were 
to follow. Up to this period all the works of Lord 
Byron were characterised by passionate energy, by 
indomitable self-will, by point and antithesis — by 
emphatic sarcasm, and by brief but beautiful descrip- 
tive touches of men and nature. With much quite his 
own, we had much to remind us of Burns, of Scott, and 
of Crabbe ; occasionally also of Campbell, but certainly 
nothing — not a vestige— of the Lake School. The com- 
position of the third canto of " Childe Harold," and of 
" The Prisoner of Chillon," however, opened up a new 
era in his mental history, — evidently brought about 
by the writings of Wordsworth, Wilson, and Coleridge. 
He began to substitute contemplation for action, and 
the softer affections of humanity for its sterner and 
darker passions. We had now a keener sensibility to 
the charms of nature — a love of stars and flowers, and 
lakes and mountains ; and descriptions which were 
formerly dashed off in general outline, were now filled 
up with elaboration, and graced with all the minute- 
ness of picturesque detail. Take, as an example of this 
contrast in matter and manner, a stanza from the first, 
and then another from the third canto of the Childe. 

" Childe Harold had a mother — not forgot, 
Though parting from that mother he did shun; 
A sister whom he loved — but saw her not 
Before his weary pilgrimage begun. 
If friends he bad, he bade adieu to none ; 
Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel : 



166 CHANGES IN LORD BYRON'S STYLE, 

They who have known what 'tis to doat upon 
A few dear objects, will in sadness feel 
Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal." 

This is the language of passion, and blighted affection, 
and baffled hope, looking not for, nay disdaining, that 
consolation which the other afterwards finds in the con- 
templation of the majestic and beautiful in the material 
world. 

" Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends; 
Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home ; 
Where a blue sky and glowing clime extends, 
He had the passion and the power to roam ; 
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam. 
Were unto him companionship ; they spake 
A mutual language clearer than the tone 
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake 

For Nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake." 

It is here, and elsewhere, that we observe the brooding 
influence of the pantheism of Wordsworth — the poet 
seeming to feel his existence less as an individual of a 
particular species, than as a portion of an eternal spirit, 
animating and pervading all things within the dominion 
of nature. 

" I live not in myself, but I become 
Portion of that around me; and to me 
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum 
Of human cities torture : I can see 
Nothing to loathe in Nature save to be 
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 
Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee, 
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain 

Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. 

And thus I am absorbed, and this is life : 
I look upon the peopled desert past, 
As on a place of agony and strife, 
Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast, 



AND MODES OF THOUGHT. 167 

To act and suffer, but remount at last 
With a fresh pinion ; which I feel to spring, 
Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blast 
Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, 
Spurning the clay-cold bones which round our being cling. 

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part 
Of me, and of my soul, as I of them ? 
Is not the love of these deep in my heart 
With a pure passion ? Should I not contemn 
All objects if compared with these? and stem 
A tide of suffering, rather than forego 
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm 
Of those whose eyes are only turned below, 
Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow 1 " 

"Well has Solomon said, " There is nothing new under 
the sun ;" and if there be anything intelligible in the 
quasi-new nebulous psychology of Emerson different 
from what is contained in these stanzas, pray what is it 
— or in where does it consist ? and " Echo answers — 
where !" 

Take another example in the solitude of the Giaour, 
as opposed to that of the Prisoner of Chillon : the one all 
anguish and despair, and over- boiling passion — the 
hyena dashing itself against the bars of its cage ; the 
other all heavenly benevolence, holy resignation, and 
tranquil regret. The Giaour is one " whose heart may 
break, but cannot bend :" his elements are fire and air 
alone. He spurns sympathy, and will not be comforted. 
Having lost what he alone prized, he looks on all else 
as worthless : he is swallowed up in a gloomy and 
engrossing selfishness. Not so the Prisoner. He turns 
from his own sorrows to sympathise with and console 
his brethren. He indulges in no demoniacal ravings — 
the thought of revenge never enters his gentle heart. 
Feeding on bitter fruits, he accuses not fate ; and 
chastens down his spirit to drink without murmuring 
the cup of bitterness, while all the lights of life are, one 



168 "prisoner op chillon." 

by one, being successively extinguished around him. 
The milk of his nature turns not to gall— his faith for- 
bids it ; and even the stones of his dungeon come to be 
looked upon by him with the regard due to " familiar 
faces." So, when his chain is broken, so far is it from 
the love of Nature having been extinguished in his 
heart, that, with rapturous delight, he scrambles up to 
the barred lattice — 

" To bend upon the mountains high 
The quiet of a loving eye. 
I saw them, and they were the same, 
They were not changed like me in frame ; 
I saw their thousand years of snow 
On high — their wide long lake below, 
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow : 
I heai'd the torrents leap and gush 
O'er channelled rock and broken bush ; 
I saw the white-walled distant town. 
And whiter sails go shimmering down ; 
And then there was a little isle, 
Which in my very face did smile, 

The only one in view. 
A small green isle — it seemed no more. 
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor ; 
But in it there were three tall trees. 
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze, 
And by it there were waters flowing, 
And on it there were young flowers growing. 

Of gentle breath and hue : 
The fish swam by the castle wall. 
And they seemed joyous each and all ; 
The eagle rode the rising blast, 
Methought he never flew so fast 
As then to me he seemed to fly." 

"We have no trace here of Spenser and Thomson, of 
Dryden and Crabbe, of Scott and Campbell, as in 
Byron's earlier productions. " The Prisoner of Chillon" 



"the giaour." 169 

is constructed throughout on the principles of Words- 
worth, and seems intended to show, by its purity, its 
pathos, and cahn beauty, how consonant these are with 
the finest purposes of poetry, Avhen freed from the 
puerilities, the verbose diffuseness, and the mean pro- 
lixity of detail, which so frequently mar their etfect, 
even in the hands of their great promulgator. Let me 
now take a rapid glance at the Tales on which, after the 
publication of the opening cantos of " Childe Harold," 
the fame of Lord Byron was principally grounded — 
" The Giaour," " The Bride of Abydos," " The Corsair," 
and " Lara." 

The soliloquising of the Giaour is in the same tone of 
baffled, and with even a bitterer spirit of misanthropy 
than the Childe himself, who, in his milder moods, 
is only a melancholy moraliser. He is like a caged 
eagle, the very oracle of impassioned wretchedness. His 
baffled and blighted love does not die away with the loss 
of its object, but continues to blaze and burn on with 
the fierceness and fervour of a volcano. The memory 
of the past throws forward fiery shadows on the dark 
sky of the future. He has glutted his revenge on his 
foes ; he has sought and taken retribution in blood for 
blood, and has withdrawn to the shades of the cloister, 
not in humility of heart, but to live on " with naught 
to love or hate," an idler among the living — breathing 
the air that has " a vitality of poison," and looking 
listlessly on the day, whose sunshine brings no cheer- 
fulness. To him all is a wild mockery, mere " vanity 
and vexation of spirit." Earth holds nothing like that 
which he has lost, " or if it doth, in vain for him." The 
holy calm and the religious feeling around him have no 
influence. Despising sympathy, he keeps aloof from 
all ; and it is not till his hair turns grey, and his strength 
fails, and the shadows of welcome death are hovering 
over him, that, to the Friar who vainly endeavours to 
console and soothe him, he pours out the long pent-up 



170 '' THE BEIDE OF ABTDOS : " 

lava-torrent of bis sufferings, " in thoughts that breathe 
and words that burn." 

" Think me not thankless — but this grief 
Looks not to priesthood for rehef; 
My soul's estate in secret guess. 
But wouldst thou pity more, say less. 
When thou canst bid my Leila live, 
Then will I sue thee to forgive ; 
Then plead my cause in that high place, 
Where proffered masses purchase grace. — 
Go where the hunter's hand hath wrung 
From forest cave her shrieking young, 
And calm the lonely lioness ; 
But soothe not, mock not my distress ! 
Waste not thine orison : Despair 
Is mightier than thy pious prayer ; 
I would not, if I might, be blest — 
I want no paradise, but rest." 

Selim, in " The Bride of Abvdos," is merely the 
Giaour under less exciting circumstances — circumstances 
that subdued him to despair ; like day-beams breaking 
in on a captive in his dungeon only to show him that 
escape from it is impossible. The whole tale is one of 
gentle affection and chastened beauty. An intellectual 
sweetness pervades it, and even tones down the bloody 
catastrophe by Avhich it is wound up. Nothing can be 
more dramatically fine than the garden scene — a scene 
that indelibly impresses itself on the heart and fancy. 
Nature seems to exult in the very luxury of her beauty ; 
yet a mysterious awe broods over all, and we feel that 
the lovers are then and there met together for the last 
time. Selim tells Zuleika of his fears : — 

" But ere her lip, or even her eye, 
Essayed to speak or look reply, 
Beneath the garden's wicket porch 
Far flashed on high a blazing torch ! 
Another — and another — and another— 



ITS HIGH BEAUTIES. 171 

Far, wide, through every thicket spread. 
The fearful lights are gleaming red ; 
Nor these alone — for each right hand 
Is ready with a sheathless brand." 

With a hasty embrace they part for ever : — 

" One bound he made, and gained the sand : 

Already at his feet hath sunk 
The foremost of the prying band, 

A gaping head, a quivering trunk; 
Another falls, but round him close 
A swarming circle of his foes ; 
From I'ight to left his path he cleft. 

And almost met the meeting wave ; 
His boat appears not five oars' length — 
His comrades strain with desperate strength — 

Oh, are they yet in time to save? 

His feet the foremost breakers lave ; 
His baud are plunging in the bay. 
Their sabres glitter through the spray ; 
Wet, wild, unwearied in the stx-and 
They struggle — now they touch the land ! 
They come — 'tis but to add to slaughter — 
His heart's best blood is on the water." 

Such is the rapid energy of Byron's narrative action ; 
now for his wild, solemn, yet passionate sentiment : — 

" By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail ! 
And woman's eye is wet, man's cheek is pale : 
Zuleika ! last of Giaffir's race ! 

Thy destined lord is come too late ; 
He sees not — ne'er shall see thy face ! 

Can he not hear 
The loud Wul-wulleh warn his distant ear ? 
Thy handmaids weeping at the gate, 
The Koran chanters of the hymn of fate ! 
Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the gale, 

Tell him thy tale ! 



172 " THE COESAIR " AND " LARA." 

Thou didst not view thy Selim fall ! 
That fearful moment when he left the cave 
Thy heart grew chill : 
He was thy hope — thy joy — thy love — thine all ! 
And that last thought of him thou couldst not save 
Sufficed to kill ; 
Burst forth in one wild cry — and all was still. 
Peace to thy broken heart and vii-gin grave ! " 

The idea of the bird coming at even-tide, and singing 
above the tomb of Zuleika, is conceived in a fine tone of 
poetical feeling ; as is also that of the white rose spring- 
ing up from her virgin ashes. 

Conrad " the Corsair" is only " the Giaour" exhibited 
in the bustle of agitated existence. His portrait, how- 
ever, is not drawn, like that of the other, in bold, rapid 
master-strokes, but is brought out by elaborate and 
diligent re-touching. He is delineated physically and 
morally; and although we are told that he is a man 
with but " one virtue and a thousand crimes," we know 
him only as a proud, sullen, unhappy, and impassioned 
being — miserable in all save his love. Medora is one 
of Byron's most exquisite personifications of female 
character — worthy to stand in the same class with the 
Desdemona, Ophelia, and Imogene of Shakespeare, and 
the Belvidera of Otway. The parting scene with her 
husband, and that which brings him back a widower 
to his silent home, are among the most touchingly 
pathetical ever conceived in a poet's heart. 

" Lara" exhibits the same strength of conception, and 
the same beauty of execution ; but its hues are less 
varied and more sombre, and its general aspect unin- 
viting. The finest passage in the poem is the death- 
scene of the hero. In " the dark page" we recognise 
Gulnare, but in our remembrance of Medora, can 
scarcely sympathise with her devotedness. 

In all these Tales passion and intellectual energy are 
invariably brought into the foreground ; and description 



"PARISINA." 173 

is made subservient to them. A change became percep- 
tible in " The Siege of Corinth" and " Paritina ;" and 
in the former we have not only the glowing morning 
scene, when the march of the invading army commences, 
which is all activity and commotion, but the glorious 
moonlight one, in which Alp and Francesca meet to 
part for ever — the one to die of a broken heart, and the 
other to perish in his apostasy. 

" There is a light cloud by the moon — 
'Tis passing, and will pass full soon — 
If by the time its vapoury sail 
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil, 
Thy heart within thee is not changed, 
Then God and man are both avenged ; 
Dark will thy doom be, darker still 
Thine immortahty of ill." 

We have the same newly-developed descriptive power 
in the opening lines of " Parisina," which depicture 
twilight, and in the sketch of the glowing summer 
west, when her paramour suffered death. 

" It is a lovely hour as yet 
Before the summer sun shall set. 
Which rose upon that heavy day, 
And mocked it with his steadiest ray ; 
And his evening beams are shed 
Full on Hugo's fated head, 
As his last confession pouxing 
To the monk — his doom deploring 
In penitential holiness, 
He bends to hear his accent bless 
With absolution, such as may 
Wipe our mortal stains away. 
That high sun on his head did glisten 
As he there did bow and listen ; 
And the rings of chestnut hair 
Curled half down his neck so bare ; 



174 

But brighter still the beam was thrown 
JLTpon the axe that near him shone 
With a clear and ghastly glitter — 
Oh ! that parting hour was bitter ! 
Even the stern stood chilled with awe. 
Dark the crime, and just the law — 
Yet they shuddered as they saw." 

It is to be remarked, also, tliat in both of the poems 
last mentioned there is a freedom and a fearlessness of 
portraiture — a kind of recklessness even communicating 
itself to the rhymes — a disdain, as it were, of all pre- 
paration for appearing at a public tribunal, which were 
not apparent in Byron's former attempts ; combined 
with something like a conscious mastery — a confidence 
in commanding success. The same remarks apply to 
" Mazeppa," with its nonchalant opening and ending — 
the card-playing scene being as quaint as if penned 
by Quarles or Cowley ; while the monarch sleeping 
over his Hetmau's adventures has a dash of the mock 
heroic. The whole poetry of the composition centres 
in the flight across the boundless steppes, with its 
exquisite episode of the wolves and ravens. 

In " The Lament of Tasso " we have a gradual 
veering round to the Wordsworthian style and prin- 
ciples ; but the conversion was not complete until 
exhibited in the third canto of the " Childe," and in 
" The Prisoner of Chillon," which appeared nearly 
simultaneously. In these we have a complete seces- 
sion from the misanthropic to the pantheistic feeling ; 
and an intense love of external nature is mingled with 
a gentler spirit of humanity. 

The magnificent drama of " Manfred" is formed of 
the same elements, thrown into new and even more 
striking combinations; indeed, it contains more true 
poetry than all his other dramas put together. At an 
earlier stage of Byron's career, Manfred would have 
been only another Lara, or Alp, or Harold ; for, like 



" DON JUAN " AND " BEPPO." 175 

them, " he has no sympathy with breathing flesh ;" 
but he has such an intense, passionate, ever- craving 
love for the majesty and beauty of nature, that, to 
gain communion w^ith the spirits of the elements, he 
ventures to give up his own. To any who have a 
lingering doubt of the depth or delicacy of Byron's 
genius, 1 have only to crave a reference to the scenes 
on the summit of the Jungfrau, beside the cataract of 
the Alps, and in the interior of the tower, when the 
moonlight on the snow-shining mountains recalls the 
memory of the Coliseum — 

*' till the place 

Became religion, and the heart ran o'er 
With silent worship of the great of old !" 

Byron, like Burns, was a prodigy of genius ; nor 
were they at all dissimilar in temperament, although 
the peer, even from early boyhood, was much more 
than the other the spoiled child of circumstances. In 
this respect he approaches nearer to Alfieri and Rous- 
seau, both of whom, in some strong features, he resembles 
— in much, certainly, of their wayward daring — their 
tendency to self-anatomy — and, I fear also, in much of 
their reckless perversion or disregard of moral principle, 
as occasions required. In " Don Juan" he seemed to 
consider himself " a chartered libertine," free to speak 
out on all subjects unreservedly, heedless of praise or 
blame — nay, contemptuously disdainful of consequences. 
Sad that this should have been so ; for that extraor- 
dinary poem is bright with some of the richest gems 
of his genius — as the shipwreck in the second canto — 
the Greek feast in the third — the death of Haidee in 
the fourth — and the magnificent stanzas on " The Isles 
of Greece." Putting morality aside, the return-home 
scene in " Beppo" is also quite inimitable for its com- 
mixture of light-hearted wit and effervescent frivolity. 
The parties are a Venetian, who has unexpectedly 



176 EXTRACT FROM " EEPPO." 

turned up after having been long among the Moslem, 
and his lady, who, in wild and solitary despair, has, for 
consolation, taken to herself another partner : — 

" They entered, and for coffee called — it came, 
A beverage for Turks and Christians both, 

Although the w&y they make it's not the same. 
Now Laura, much recovered, or less loth 

To speak, cries ' Beppo ! what's your Pagan name ? 
Bless me ! your beard is of amazing growth ! 

And how came you to keep away so long ? 

Are you not sensible 'twas very wrong ? 

And are you really, ti-uly, now a Turk ? 

Is it true they use their fingers for a fork ? 

Well — that's the prettiest shawl, as I'm alive ! 
You'll give it me ? They say you eat no pork, 

And how so many years did you contrive 
To — bless me ! did I ever ? No ! I never 
Saw a man grown so yellow ! how's your liver ? 

Beppo ! that beard of yours becomes you not ; 

It shall be shaved before you're a day older : 
Why do you wear it 1 Oh ! I had forgot — 

Pray, don't you think the weather here is colder 1 
How do I look? You shan't stir from this spot 

In that queer dress, for fear that some beholder 
Should find you out, and make the story known. 
How short your hair is ! Lack ! how grey it's grown ! ' " 

How different is this, in tone and spirit, from his early 
verses " To Mary," on paying her a visit after that 
marriage with another, which, I cannot help thinking, 
was the star of wormwood that embittered all the 
after-thoughts of Byron's young heart, blighted its 
most deeply-rooted hopes of happiness, and left him 
bankrupt of bliss in life — "a reckless roue." The 
following stanzas seem the very wringings-out of the 
agony of affection : — 



"verses to MARY." 177 

" Well ! thou art happy, and I feel 
That T should thus be happy too ; 
For still my heart regards thy weal 
Warmly, as it was wont to do. 

Thy husband's blest, and 'twill impart 

Some pangs to view his happier lot ; 
But let them pass ! — oh ! how my heart 

Would hate him if he loved thee not ! 

When late I saw thy favourite child, 

I thought my jealous heart would break ; 

But when the unconscious infant smiled, 
I kissed it for its mother's sake. 

I kissed it, and repressed my sighs, 

Its father in its face to see ; 
But then it had its mother's eyes, 

And they were all to love and me. 

Mary, adieu ! I must away : 

While thou art blest I'll not repine ; 
But near thee I can never stay ; 

My heart would soon again be thine. 

I deemed that time, I deemed that pride 
Had quenched at length my boyish flame ; 

Nor knew, till seated by thy side, 
My heart in all, save hope, the same. 

Yet was I calm ; I knew the time 

My breast would thrill before thy look ; 

But now to tremble were a crime ! 
We met, and not a nerve was shook. 

I saw thee gaze upon my face. 

Yet meet with no confusion there ; 
One only feeling couldst thou trace — 

The sullen calmness of despair. 

M 



178 REGINALD HEBEB : 

Away ! away ! my early dream 

Remembrance never must awake : 
Oh ! where is Lethe's fabled stream — 

My foolish heart, be still, or break ! " 

It is somewhat remarkable that the two most impas- 
sioned poets of modern times — Robert Burns and Lord 
Byron — should each have died at the early age of thirty- 
seven — as if the blade of such temperaments soon wore 
through the scabbard. Although so far dissociated by- 
place in society, their fates and fortunes, as I have 
hinted, had many common points of resemblance. In 
the zenith of his dazzling reputation, Byron could not 
help exclaiming, " I have not loved the world, nor the 
world me ;" and Burns, doomed to a destiny so irrecon- 
cilable with his feelings and aspirations, must have often 
felt, like Southey's Thalaba, that he indeed was — 

" A lonely being, far from all he loved ! " 

Light lie the earth on these two glorious human crea- 
tures ; and let every cloud perish and pass away from 
their immortal memories ! 

"We now turn to one who may more particularly be 
regarded in the light of a sacred poet, and whose life 
was a beautiful commentary on his writings. The career 
of Reginald Heber commenced considerably earlier than 
that of several others whose productions I have already 
alluded to. His poem entitled " Palestine" — an extraor- 
dinary effort for one so young, whether we regard its strik- 
ing imagery, its high-toned sentiment, or its elegant 
versification — carried off an Oxford prize in 1802 ; and, 
fine as some of these prize poems have unquestionably 
been, more especially Porteous's " Death," Glynn's " Day 
of Judgment," Grant's " Restoration of Learning," and 
AVrangham's "Holy Land," still it is doubtful whether 
Heber has been equalled either by any preceding or suc- 
ceeding competitor. It is admirably sustained through- 
out ; and indeed the passages relating to the building of 



HIS POEMS AND HYMNS. 179 

the Temple, and to the scenes on Calvary, pass from the 
magnificent almost into the sublime. His second ap- 
pearance, " Barope, or Lines on the Present War," in 
1809, although more vigorous and elaborate, wants the 
freshness and the salient points of his earlier one ; and 
although not derogatory to, did not enhance his reputa- 
tion. These, together vt'itli a fine fragment, " The Passage 
of the Red Sea," some free translations from Pindar, and 
a few miscellaneous verses, were collected together in a 
volume, published in 1812. 

While incumbent of Hodnet in Shropshire, Heber 
had an opportunity of affording the world an illustrious 
example of the highest intellectual culture, and the 
finest natural taste, being made perfectly compatible 
with the most faithful discharge of the humblest reli- 
gious and moral duties — the instruction of the ignorant, 
the reproof of the erring, the visitation of the sick, and 
the consolation of the bereaved ; and, in his leisure 
moments, he there also took delight in pouring out his 
feelings in snatches of sacred verse. In after years, the 
associations connected with home-scenes gave these com- 
positions somewhat of a greater value in his own eyes ; 
and, when Bishop of Calcutta, he took a pleasure in 
revising and collecting them ; but they were not pre- 
sented to the public until after his premature and 
lamented death in 1826. These " Hymns " have been 
by far the most popular of his productions, and deser- 
vedly so ; for in purity and elevation of sentiment, in 
simple pathos, and in eloquent earnestness, it would be 
difficult to find anything superior to them in the range 
of sacred lyric poetry. They have the home-truth of 
Watts, but rank much higher, as literary compositions, 
than the " Moral and Divine Songs " of that great bene- 
factor of youth ; and all the devotion of Wesley or 
Keble, without their languor and diffuse verbosity. 
Heber always writes like a Christian scholar, and never 
finds it necessary to lower his tone on account of his 



180 CHRISTMAS HTMN. 

subjects. He is ever characterised by fine sensibilities ; 
by pure natural taste, highly cultivated ; and by a deep 
sense of the majestic and beautiful. Probably, too, 
from being extensively acquainted with what had been 
achieved by the great preceding poets, both of ancient 
and modern times, he did, not venture to think that he 
could now startle the world by bold attempts at origi- 
nality ; but what he did he determined to do well. 
Several copies of verses, which appeared posthumously 
in his " Journals," have all the freshness of his earlier 
compositions, with increased freedom of expression — 
giving us reason to believe that even greater things 
might have been expected from him. As it is, the 
sweet music of his " Thou art gone to the Grave," of 
his " Lo ! the Lilies of the Field," of his " From Green- 
land's icy Mountains," and of his " Brightest and best of 
the Sons of the Morning," will doubtless touch the hearts 
of many future generations, as it has done the present. 
How calmly, sweetly solemn is the last -mentioned 
hymn ! — 

" Brightest and best of the sons of the morning ! 
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid ; 
Star of the East ! the horizon adorning, 
Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid ! 

Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining ; 

Low hes his head with the beasts of the stall ; 
Angels adore him in slumber reclining — 

Maker and Monarch and Saviour of all ! 

Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion. 
Odours of Edom, and offerings divine 1 

Gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean 1 
Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine ] 

Vainly we offer each ample oblation — 

Vainly with gifts would his favour secure ; 

Richer by far is the heart's adoration ; 
Dearer to God ai'e the prayers of the poor. 



HENRY HART MILMAN. 181 

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning ! 

Dawn on ouv darkness, and lend us thine aid ; 
Star of the East ! the horizon adorning, 

Lead where the infant Redeemer is laid ! " 

In turning from Bishop Heber to Henry Hart Milman, 
Canon of Westminster, perhaps something of the same 
remarks regarding the chilling influence of scholastic 
training may be found to hold true. The muse of Milton 
soared aloft without being seemingly encumbered by its 
Atlantean burthen of learning — nay, turned, as occasion 
required, its various stores to presentand happy account; 
but this was only a proof of its vast native energy and 
vigour — a roc amid the birds of the air ; for, when 
" Knowledge was at one entrance quite shut out," all the 
aspects of nature seemed to keep ever revolving before 
his mental eye in serene beauty and majesty. Milman's 
taste and imagination, on the contrary, do not appear to 
have ever been allowed free scope ; and that his intel- 
lect was too early put into harness is certain, for it is 
recorded of him that he carried off the greatest number 
of College prizes that ever fell to the portion of one 
individual. 

Passing over his elegant prize poem, his earliest pro- 
duction, "Fazio," as being a regular acting drama, does 
not fall to be considered here ; but his " Fall of Jeru- 
salem," " Martyr of Antioch," " Belshazzar," and " Anne 
Boleyn," although cast in a dramatic mould, were never 
intended for scenic representation, and approach, in 
most essentials, very closely to the mere poem. As such 
they have high and peculiar merits. In all there are 
fine, occasionally remarkable passages ; but they pall 
from similarity of tone ; and " The Fall of Jerusalem " 
has been generally thought the best, probably only 
because it was the first. These compositions are charac- 
terised by a copious command of high-toned language ; 
by descriptions occasionally rich, even to gorgeousness ; 
and above all, by passages of great lyrical beauty, some- 



182 FUNERAL ANTHEM. 

times simply pathetic, as in the funeral anthem, 
"Brother, thou hast gone before us," in the "Martyr of 
Antioch," but much more often swelling into organ- 
toned magnificence — 

" "With neck in thunder clothed. 
And long resouuding pace," 

which Gray allegorically attributes to the march of 
Drvden's verse, as in the advent hymn, "For thou wert 
born of Woman ; and in the stanzas commencing — 

" Even thus, amid thy pride and luxury, 
Earth, shall that last coming burst on thee ! " 

with which the " Fall of Jerusalem" so grandly con- 
cludes. 

The funeral anthem has always struck me as particu- 
larly fine ; and its solemn music has often, through 
many years, haunted my memory. 

" Brother, thou art gone before us. 

And thy saintly soul is flown 
Where tears are wiped from every eye, 

And sorrow is unknown. 
From the burden of the flesh, 

And from care and fear released, 
Where the wicked cease from troubling, 

And the weary are at rest. 

The toilsome way thou'st travelled o'er. 

And borne the heavy load ; 
But Christ hath taught thy languid feet 

To reach his blest abode. 
Thou'rt sleeping now, like Lazarus, 

Upon his Father's breast. 
Where the wicked cease from troubling. 

And the w^earv are at rest. 



CHARACTER OF MILMAN'S POETRY. 183 

Sin can nevei' taint thee noAv, 

Ifor doubt thy faith assail, 
Nor thy meek trust in Jesus Christ 

And the Holy Spirit fail ; 
And there thou'rt sure to meet the good 

Whom on earth thou lovedst best, 
Where the wicked cease from troubling, 

And the weary are at rest. 

* Earth to earth,' and ' Dust to dust,' 

The solemn priest hath said, 
So we lay the turf above thee now, 

And we seal thy naiTow bed ; 
But thy spix'it, brother, soars away 

Among the faithful blest, 
Where the wicked cease from troubling, 

And the weary are at rest." 

"Samor, Lord of the Bright City," a heroic poem in 
twelve books, was the most elaborate and ambitious, 
but probably the least successful effort of its author, 
from its deficiency in nature and simplicity. It is over- 
written, and burthened with ornament and illustration. 
For eloquence we have redundant fluency, and for in- 
spiration rhetoric ; and we are too frequently reminded, 
sometimes seemingly with intention, of the poetry of 
Greece and Rome, not only in the music, but in the 
spirit of particular passages. Milman's blank verse is 
modelled in a great measure on that of Southey ; but he 
has not attained the natural grace, the flexibility, and 
varied intonation of that great master. Nor can the 
subject of the poem be admitted to be happily chosen — 
the decay of ancient British and the rise of Saxon power 
— for the heroes and the incidents are all too remote, 
and undefined, and locally unimportant, to be so re- 
stored as to re-awaken strong or abiding interest. 

As a poet, Milman is always sustained, elegant, elo- 
quent, rhetorical ; but his imagery, though copious, is 



184 CHARACTER OF MILMAN'S POETRY. 

seldom novel. He never startles by an unexpected 
burst of original power; nor melts by those spontaneous 
minute touches of nature, which are common alike to 
the humble sketches of Clare, and the gorgeous page- 
antry of Coleridge. He overlays with ornament, until 
even the natural loses its charm, and we look and long 
in vain for the simple and unadorned : — hence it is that 
few or none of his lines recur as adages, like those of 
Burns or Wordsworth. He is continually straining 
after the grand, nor can it be said that his efforts are 
often quite unsuccessful, if taken as they stand by them- 
selves ; but they are comparatively lost in the mass from 
lack of relief — as a long mountain-chain loses in appa- 
rent altitude, without the break of some Mont Blanc or 
Chimborazo, or unless it be here and there intersected 
by winding valleys and abrupt ravines. 

His miscellaneous poetry consists in translations from 
the Greek, from the Italian, and from Oriental sources, 
all elegant and scholarly; and some "Hymns for Church 
Service," originally published with those of Bishop 
Heber. These are all fine, more especially that for Good 
Friday. 

As a poet. Dean Milman is deficient in nature and 
passion, and his imagination has not been allowed to 
escape with sufficient freedom from the trammels of 
scholastic rules, and the Procrustes-bed of classicality. 
We are always impressed with a conviction of his learn- 
ing, his ability, and his cultivated taste, but are haunted 
at the same time with the unsatisfactory feeling, that 
his poetry is rather a clever recasting of fine things 
already familiar to us, than strikingly fresh and ori- 
ginal. His ability as a critic, as the historian of the 
Jews, as the editor of Gibbon — whose baneful errors and 
assumptions he triumphantly combats — and as the com- 
mentator on Horace, are well known. With less leaning 
to authorities, and greater reliance on his own powers 
and impressions, there can be no doubt that Milman 



GEORGE CROLY : 185 

would have written far finer poetry, and secured a more 
extended acceptability ; for his more simple strains are, 
after all, those best remembered, and he could be at 
times alike natural and pathetic. 

It is not a little curious that our next two poets 
should be also distinguished clergymen of the Church 
of England — Dr Croly and the Honourable William 
Herbert. 

George Croly first excited attention as a poet by his 
"Paris in 1815 ;" which, by its uncommon merits, at 
once gave him a fixed and distinguished place in litera- 
ture, and was hailed as a probable harbinger of still 
greater achievements. This was followed in 1820 by 
" The Angel of the World," an Arabian, and by " Sebas- 
tian," a Spanish tale. 

"The Angel" is a paraphrase of one of the most 
graceful fictions of the Koran, the fall from heaven of 
Haruth and Maruth, by the temptations of female 
beauty and wine. It is written in the Spenserian 
stanza, and with oriental gorgeousness and grace. But 
such subjects are too ethereal — they do not stand hand- 
ling ; in their gossamer fabric they have the frailty of 
rose-leaves, besides being deficient in the materials 
which can alone command direct human sympathy. 

" Sebastian " is a tale of greater length and higher 
pretensions — finer, as a composition, in some of its 
parts, as in the description of the Moorish palace of the 
Alhambra, which vies with those of Washington Irving 
and Mrs Heraans — and of the taking of the veil by a 
daughter of the house of Medina Sidonia, which is full 
of serene and solemn beauty ; but the poem is unequal 
to a degree that can only be laid to the score of sheer 
haste or carelessness — pleas which criticism dare not 
accept. Its faults are not those of poverty, but of 
redundance ; and originate not from want of soil, or of 
sun and shower, but of the pruning-knife. 

To Dr Croly's next productions, " Catiline, a Tragedy," 



186 HIS VARIOUS PRODUCTIONS. 

and " Pride shall have a Fall," a comedy, I allude not 
farther than to say, that, although the former is in 
some measure marred by its departure from historical 
accuracy, both are characterised by that vigorous hand- 
ling and life-like dialogue which carry attention on 
with unflagging interest ; and throughout the comedy, 
some of its author's finest lyrics are gracefully inter- 
spersed. These productions for the stage were succeeded 
by a series of illustrative verses to Dagley's ''Gems 
from the Antique," a con amove task, which he executed 
to admiration ; these little poems being perhaps the 
most perfect things Dr Croly has written — although it 
would be difficult to be very definite or decided on this 
point, as hundreds of copies of verses from his inde- 
fatigable pen, some of them of surpassing excellence, 
lie scattered about — rich bouquets of unowned flowers, 
— throughout the wide unbounded fields of periodical 
literature. 

As a poet, Dr Croly has many great and shining 
qualities ; a rich command of language, whether for the 
tender or the serious — an ear finely attuned to musical 
expression — a fertile and lucid couceptive power, and 
an intellect at once subtle and masculine. But it 
strikes me that he has never done full justice to his 
poetical genius, as none of his productions in verse at 
all come up to the standard of his undoubted capabilities. 
Most of his poems are liker efi"usions — mere sybilline 
leaves — than compositions. Thrown oft^at a heat, they 
have been given to the world without correction, and 
without elaboration ; and hence we have passages of 
mere declamation seasoned with eloquence, and, not 
unfrequently, rhetoric unhesitatingly substituted for 
inspiration. Add to this, that his reputation as one of 
the most brilliant prose-writers of our time may be 
said to have, in some measure, eclipsed his lustre as a 
poet ; for it would be difficult to point to any English 
style, save that of Edmund Burke's, at once so idiomatic 



HERBERT'S NORSE POETRY. 187 

and eloquent, so full of rich variety, and of such unflag- 
ging spirit. These excellencies he has shown in the 
many able volumes of his professional writings, as well 
as in his countless contributions to general literature, 
in the romance of " Sakthiel," the novel of " Marstou," 
and the countless other outpourings of his voluminous 
and versatile pen. 

The Hon. William Herbert first appeared before the 
public in a series of elegant and spirited translations 
from the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, as also, and 
more particularly, from the Danish and Icelandic. The 
latter were much admired by Sir Walter Scott and 
other competent judges, as well from their novelty and 
real merit, as from the tact with which the author had 
succeeded in reproducing the Sagas of the Scalds in 
language at once chastened, rich, and harmonious. 
There can be little doubt that this went far in deter- 
mining the bent of the author's mind to the antiquities, 
language, and literature of Scandinavia ; for, with the 
exception of a few short but exquisite fragments by 
Gray, he felt that the field was untraversed, and his 
own ; and he strenuously exerted himself to do for it 
what Byron had been doing for the Turkish, and 
Southey for the Hindoo mythology. As a first result, 
his "Helga," a poem in seven cantos, appeared in 18J5, 
and was evidently the fruit of much diligent labour 
and research, culled from what to most would have 
been regarded as very unpromising materials. There 
was less danger in rejecting than in selecting ; but he 
must have felt that even the best cooked of his illustra- 
tions of the superstitions, customs, and scenery of 
Scandinavia, required a considerable dash of classical 
sauce to fit them for more southern palates ; and they 
thus lost in Norse raciness what they gained in delicacy. 
"Helga" can have but slender claims to originality of 
style or manner, when we know tliat it was written 
after the " Rokeby " of Scott ; although it may be also 



188 CHAEACTEES OF HERBERT'S POETRY. 

regarded as one of the other few triumphs over what 
Lord Byron has termed "the fatal facility of the octo- 
syllabic measure." Herbert wrote with elegance always, 
and occasionally with power, but we have ever far 
more art than genius; and from his anxiety to be 
learnedly correct, he too frequently runs the risk of 
becoming heavy and monotonous. 

The story relates to the appearance of a party of wild 
Berserkars from Denmark, at the palace of King Ingva, 
their chief, demanding his daughter Helga in marriage ; 
or, on refusal, to fight his most redoubted champion in 
single combat. The challenge is accepted by Hialraar, 
a brave young knight, and the secret admirer of the 
princess, who defies him to mortal encounter on the 
island of Samsoe. Meanwhile Helga is conveyed by 
visions down to " Hela's drear abode," where she learns 
that the Berserkar is only to be conquered by a falchion, 
then in the hand of a giant-statue, amid the enchanted 
mines of the far north. Hialmar determines on posses- 
sing it, and his adventures are picturesquely described ; 
but snares being laid for him, after he has succeeded in 
his enterprise, he falls into these, and poetical justice is 
decreed. As he is about to enter the fated field, the 
dread apparitional appearance of the Valkyriur, or 
Maids of Slaughter, who cross his way, forewarns him 
of impending doom. The huge Berserkar, indeed, falls 
beneath his victorious falchion, but from the extent of 
his own wounds, he speedily bleeds to death ; and 
meanwhile, as Helga with an anxious heart is awaiting 
the result, Asbiorn, a disappointed rival, savagely carry- 
ing on his shoulders the lifeless body of Hialraar, lavs 
it within her arms, and instantly her spirit passes 
away in silence, and without a sign. 

In the management of his materials, Herbert certainly 
did much to temper, with chaster ornaments, the rude 
wildness of Scaldic fiction, and to give to its mon- 
strosities the hues and lineaments of poetry. His 



"northern spring." 189 

descriptions are terse and animated, and he often paints 
in hues vivid and intense. He seldom offends against 
good taste, either in his selection of subjects, or his 
manner of treating them ; and the marks of fine scholar- 
ship are everywhere apparent in his compositions. 

" Attila" was the last and most ambitious production 
of Herbert ; his most laboured, but not his most suc- 
cessful one. The fire of his youthful enthusiasm had 
been gradually burning out, and this he endeavoured, 
but vainly, to atone for, by a strict adherence to Aristo- 
telian rules, backed by the Galilean codicils of Boileau 
and Bossu. He stumbles between the cold stateliness 
of Glover's " Leonidas," and "W'ilkie's " Epigoniad," and 
the flowery exuberances of Edwin Atherstone and 
Abraham Heraud. Nature is shut out by art, or 
perishes under the tyrannous tutelage of refinement 
and propriety. Striking scenes and situations are 
occasionally opened up, and judiciously treated ; but 
there is a lack alike of great beauties and of great faults. 
Yet Herbert had an eye and a heart for nature, and 
there are few fresher or finer things in descriptive 
poetry than his lines in Helga, on the sudden outburst 
of the Northern spring : — 

" Testre'en the mountain's nigged brow 
Was mantled o'er with dreary snow : 
The sun sat red behind the hill, 
And every breath of wind was still : 
But ere he rose, the southern blast 
A veil o'er heaven's blue arch had cast; 
Thick rolled the clouds, and genial rain 
Poured the wide deluge o'er the plain. 
Fair glens and verdant vales appear, 
And warmth awakes the budding year. 
0, 'tis the touch of fairy hand 
That wakes the spring of Northern land : 
It warms not there by slow degrees, 
With changeful pulse, the uncertain breeze ; 



190 WILLIAM TENNANT. 

But sudden, on the wondering sight, 
Bursts forth the beam of living light, 
And instant verdure springs around, 
And magic flowers bedeck the ground. 
Eeturned from regions far away, 
The red-winged throstle pours his lay ; 
The soaring snipe salutes the spring, 
While the breeze whistles through his wing ; 
And as he hails the melting snows, 
The heath-cock claps his wings, and crows." 

It would be difficult to point to any single year in 
the history of our literature so rich and varied in pro- 
duction as 1812. To it we owe, together with several 
lesser triumphs, the " Childe Harold" of Byron, the 
"Rokeby" of Scott, "The Isle of Palms" of Wilson, 
"The Queen's Wake" of James Hogg, the "Anster 
Fair" of William Tennant, and the "Rejected Ad- 
dresses " of Horace and James Smith. 

The introduction to British literature of the Oitava 
Rima, long familiar to the readers of the serio-comic 
conventional poetry of Italy, in the pages of Pulci, 
Casti, Berni, Tassoni, and Ariosto, most certainly 
appertains — whether for good or evil — to William 
Tennant, an almost self-taught genius, at the time an 
obscure clerk in a merchant's store, in the old, quaint 
little town of Anstruther in Fife, and at the period of 
his death a Doctor of Laws, and Professor of Oriental 
Languages in the University of St Andrews. 

Tennant's other works were a tragedy on " Cardinal 
Beaton" — ineffective as a drama, but abounding in 
passages of high merit and interest; "The Thane of 
Fife;" and "The Dinging Down of the Cathedral,"— 
the last written in imitation of the antique style, and 
in the orthography of the once celebrated Scottish 
poets, William Dunbar and Sir David Lyndsay. It is 
wonderful to observe how gaily his Pegasus prances 
under such a load of grotesque trappings, which, how- 



WILLIAM TENNANT. 191 

ever, were quite unnecessary, and in equivocal taste ; 
so that the cleverness exhibited may be said in a 
great measure to have been thrown away. Tennant's 
latest poetical collection — the " Hebrew Hymns and 
Eclogues" — showed an evident decline of power ; 
were deficient in freshness and variety ; and, in as far 
as fame was concerned, might have been advantageously 
withheld. 

Tennant's first w^as, beyond all comparison, also his 
best poem. The merit of " Anster Fair " consists in its 
lively eflfervesceuce of animal spirits, and in the varied 
copiousness of its imagery, drawn alike from the gay 
and the sententious, from the classical and the romantic, 
from fancy and from observation. There is a good deal 
of minute painting throughout, evidently after nature, 
and in several places it rises not only to the dignity and 
elevation of true poetry, but possesses one image at 
least which borders on the sublime. It is where, in 
enumerating the motley parties flocking, from different 
parts of the country, to the festivities of the fair, we 
have these lines — 

" Comes next from Ross-shire and from Sutherland 
The horny-knuckled kilted Highlandman : 
From where, ^lpon the rocJcy Caithness strand, 
Breaks the long wave that at the Pole began." 

The following stanzas, descriptive of the personal 
charms of the heroine, have some of the distinctive 
beauties just alluded to : — 

" Her form was as the morning's blithesome star, 
That, capped with crimson coronet of beams, 

Rides up the dawning orient in her ear, 

New waslied and doubly fulgent from the streams — 

The Chaldee shepherd eyes her light afar, 
And on his knees adores her as she gleams : 



192 JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE. 

So shone the stately form of Maggy Lauder, 
And so the admiring clouds pay homage and applaud her. 

Her face was as the summer cloud, whereon 
The dawning sun delights to rest his rays ! 
Compared with it old Sharon's Vale, o'ergrown 
With flaunting roses, had resigned its praise. 
For why ? Her face with heaven's own roses shone, 

Mocking the morn, and witching men to gaze ; 
And he that gazed with cold unsmitten soul, 
That blockhead's heart was ice, thrice baked beneath the 
Pole." 

It was not till five years after the appearance of 
"Anster Fair," that Mr Hookham Frere put forth his 
brochure, so full of clever vv^himsicality and elegant 
nonchalance, the " Prospectus and Specimen of an 
Intended National Work, by William and Robert 
Whistlecraft of Stowmarket, in Suffolk, Harness and 
Collar Makers." With less, perhaps, of real poetical 
imagination than Tennant, Frere exhibited much more 
dexterity in the use of his weapons : his wit is more 
refined and his scholarship more dexterous. To say 
nothing of the "Beppo" and "Don Juan" of Byron, 
and the "Ring of Gyges" and "Spanish Story" of 
Barry Cornwall, a crowd of imitators have since fol- 
lowed in the same alluring path, but certainly without 
anyone having quite come up to Whistlecraft in his 
peculiar eccentric excellencies. To me the following 
stanzas, with which the third canto opens, have always 
appeared inimitable in their way : — 

" I've a proposal here from Mr Murray. 

He offers, handsomely, the money down ; 
My dear, you might recover from your flurry ^ 

In a nice airy lodging out of town, 
At CroydoD, Epsom, anywhere in Surrey. 

If every stanza brings us in a crown, 
I think that I might venture to bespeak 
A bedroom and front parlour for next week. 



" WHISTLECRAFT." 193 

Tell me, my dear Thalia, what you think; 

Your nerves have undergone a sudden shock; 
Your poor dear spirits have begun to sink — 

On Banstead Downs you'll muster a new stock ; 
And I'd be sure to keep away from drink, 

And always go to bed by twelve o'clock. 
We'll travel down there in the morning stages; — 
Our verses shall go down to distant ages. 

And here, in town, we'll breakfast on hot rolls, 
And you shall have a better shawl to wear; 

These pantaloons of mine are chafed in holes; 
By Monday next I'll compass a new pair : 

Come now fling up the cinders, fetch the coals, 
And take away the things you hung to air ; 

Set out the tea-things, and bid Phoebe bring 

The kettle up. * Arms, and the Monks I sing.' " 

The following stanzas from " Beppo" are pitched 
exactly on the same key, and approach the perfection 
of the nonchalant style of rhymical improvisation : — 

" Oh that I had the art of easy writing 

"What should be easy reading ! Could I scale 

Parnassus, where the Muses sit inditing 
Those pretty poems never known to fail. 

How quickly would I print, the world delighting, 
A Grecian, Syrian, or Assyrian tale ; 

And sell you, mixed with western sentimentalism. 

Some samples of the finest orientalism. 

But I am but a nameless sort of person, 
(A broken Dandy lately on my travels,) 

And take, for rhyme to hook my rambling verse on, 
The first that Walker's Lexicon unravels ; 

And when I can't find that, I put a worse on, 
Not caring, as I ought, for critics' cavils; 

I've half a mind to tumble down to prose, 

But verse is more in fashion — so here goes." 

This species of poetry, if we are to dignify it with 

N 



194 THE GINGER-POP SCHOOL. 

that name — which, like charity, covers a multitude of 
peculiarities — was characterised more especially by its 
light humour, by its approximating and blending 
together seeming incongruities ; by its airy, rapid, 
picturesque narrative ; by its commixture of the grave, 
the pathetic, and the majestic, with the frivolous, the 
farcical, and the absurd ; and bore the same relation to 
the epic and narrative that ginger-pop bears to cham- 
pagne, or Grimaldi the clown to John Kemble the 
tragedian. It was a graft on our indigenous British 
stock from the Italian ; and was succeeded, in tem- 
porary popularity at least, by another variety, of which 
it would be more difficult to point out the original 
prototype. This last may be characterised as being 
little else than an adoption of the mere vesture of verse 
for poetry, the rhymes, or outer garments, being sub- 
stituted as the prime quality in demand ; and these 
the more numerous and complex the better. Walker's 
Rhyming Dictionary was thus made the fountain of 
Helicon ; the ingenuity of the artificer exhibiting itself 
in his being able to thread these jingles upon some 
string of narrative — a labour to be compared only to 
the Chinese polishing of cherry-stones. The double and 
tripartite rhymes of Butler were mere occasional exu- 
berances of his metrical opulence ; but, with the Bar- 
ham and Hood school, such were made to form the 
staple commodity in demand. In " The lugoldsby 
Legends," it is not to be denied, however, that there 
is a nucleus of real poetry — elements of fancy and 
pathos ; while the metrical cleverness can only be 
matched by Southey's " How does the water come 
down at Lodore ? " and stands in the same relation to 
horsemanship as the gymnastic legerdemain at Cook's 
or Franconi's does to the equestrianism of the race- 
ground or the hunting-field. 

Here is one of Barham's pictures — a Bacchanalian 
domestic quarrel, and its consequences : — 



" A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY." 195 

' Mrs Pryce's tongue ran long, and ran fast; 
But patience is apt to wear out at last, 
And David Piyce in temper was quick, 
So he stretched out his hand, and caught hold of a stick; 
Perhaps in its use he might mean to be lenient, 
But walking just then was not very convenient. 

So he threw it instead, 

Direct at her head; 

It knocked off her hat ; 

Down she fell flat ; 
Her case, perhaps, was not much mended by that : 
But whatever it was, whether rage and pain 
Produced apoplexy, or burst a vein. 
Or her tumble produced a concussion of brain, 
I can't say for certain, but this I can. 
When sobered by fright, to assist her he ran, 
Mrs Winnifred Piyce was as dead — as Queen Anne ! 



The fearfiil catastrophe. 

Named in my last strophe, 
As adding to grim Death's exploits such avast trophy, 
Soon made a great noise; and the shocking fatality 
Ran over, like wildfire, the whole Principality. 
And then came Mr Ap Thomas the coronei". 
With his jury to sit, some dozen or more, on her. 

Mr Pryce, to commence 

' His ingenious defence,' 
Made ' a powerful appeal ' to the jury's ' good sense; ' 

The world he must defy, 

Ever to justify- 
Any presumption of ' Malice prepense.' 

The unlucky lick 

From the end of his stick 
He * deplored,' he was apt to be rather too quick ; 

But, really, her prating 

Was so aggravating. 
Some trifling correction was just what he meant ; all 
The rest, he assured them, was * quite accidental.' 



196 THEODORE HOOK. 

Then he called Mr Jones, 

Who deposed to her tones, 
And her gestures, and hints about 'breaking his bones.' 
While Mr Ap Morgan, and Mr Ap Rhyse, 

Declared the deceased 

Had styled him ' a Beast,' 
And swore they had witnessed with grief and surprise, 
The allusions she made to his limbs and his eyes. 

The juiy, in fine, having sat on the body 

The whole day discussing the case and gin-toddy. 

Returned about half-past eleven at night 

The following verdict, we find—' Sarved her right !' " 

With this harlequin elasticity of thought — this rail- 
road velocity of rhyming, and with ability of a certain 
kind, and in no mean degree admitted, Barhani, after 
all, as a poetical artist, cannot be said to stand on the 
same level with Thomas Hood, who really possessed, 
along with this jugglery, "the vision and the faculty 
divine ; " and, even in contest on their own peculiar 
ground — when, like two circus clowns, striving to show 
which could behave the most grotesquely — the palm 
must be awarded to Hood, who has contrived, in his 
" Miss Kilmansegg, with her Golden Leg," not only 
to outdo "the Ingoldsby Legends " in rich exuberance 
of rhyming clatter, but to extract from it some excellent 
moral lessons. 

The wit and humour of Theodore Hook flashed on 
another path ; and that alternately as song-writer and 
satirist — as play-wright and novel-writer — as essayist 
and biographer. His readiness was miraculous, amount- 
ing almost to improvisation ; but, as might have been 
expected from this, his genius wanted depth and con- 
centration — it dazzled and disappeared like ground- 
lightning, or the aurora-borealis. He caught his inspi- 
ration from passing topics, and not from the survey 
of grand principles ; and thus was liker Gilray than 



JAMES AND HORACE SMITH. 197 

Hogarth — liker H. B. than George Cruickshank. 
Everything that he attempted was adapted to the 
meridian of the current day ; he caught its tone, and 
his success was proportionate. His brochures accom- 
plished their purpose effectively, and, having done so, 
left nothing behind but the memory of their exceeding 
cleverness. 

The natural talents of Theodore Hook, if not of a very 
lofty order, were certainly, in their way, quite extraor- 
dinary ; and his conversational readiness and brilliancy 
— his sharpness of repartee, and the wit and humour 
"he wove on his sleeve" — must have verged on the 
wonderful ere they could have elicited the admiration 
of, and been attested by, such competent and critical 
judges as Brinsley Sheridan, S. T. Coleridge, and John 
Lockhart. As a dramatist and novel-writer, Hook's 
works are exceedingly voluminous, and are all more or 
less impressed with the sparkling qualities of his mind 
— vivid power of description, acute observation, sarcastic 
point and variety. Doubtless, his wit and humour were 
apt to degenerate into buffoonery, his pathos into senti- 
mentality, and his nature into conventionalism ; but 
his knowledge of city life, in its manners, habits, and 
language, seemed intuitive, and has been surpassed only 
by Fielding and Dickens. Many and multifarious, how- 
ever, as are his volumes, he has left behind him no 
great creation — nothing that can be pointed to as a 
triumphant index of the extraordinary powers which 
he undoubtedly possessed. 

Brilliant, but far less brilliant in their natural and 
acquired endowments than Theodore Hook, were the 
brothers Horace and James Smith — not so the impres- 
sion they have managed to leave behind them. Their 
first combined work, "The Rejected Addresses," stood 
and stands without a parallel in our literature. It is a 
thing sui generis, and must have high merit ; for, often 
as its popularity has been attempted to be shaken by 



198 HON. W. R. SPENCER. 

younger hands, and the adaptation of newer themes to 
similar management, it remains not only unsurpassed, 
but is literally a first without a second. Written for a 
temporary purpose in 1812, it still remains a staple 
production in 1851 ; and probably no better, or at least 
more truthful and striking, epitome of the greater and 
smaller authors, whose characteristic excellencies, pecu- 
liarities, and defects it professes to imitate, can any- 
where be found than in its lively and ludicrous pages. 
Among its happiest things are the imitations of Crabbe 
and Coleridge, by James Smith ; and of Scott and 
Byron, by Horace. Exquisitely humorous as are the 
Monk Lewis, the "Wordsworth, the Southey, and the 
Fitzgerald, they can be regarded merely as travesties, 
and are consequently far inferior to those mentioned in 
value. The only other joint production of the Smiths, 
the " Horace in London," bears many traces of the same 
cleverness ; but the pieces are very unequal, and are 
mostly rather indications than expressions of peculiar 
power ; and the volume is now out of date, from its 
entirely referring to the current levities, humours, and 
topics of London life at the time when it appeared. 

With classical taste, shrewd observation, humour, wit, 
and feeling, it is a strange fact that James and Horace 
Smith were alike much more eminent for their imita- 
tive than for their original powers — a fact demonstrated 
by those compositions which each respectively gave the 
world as his own ; and in this point of view they were 
inferior to another of kindred mind, the Hon. William 
Robert Spencer, Avhose muse, like theirs, and that of 
Theodore Hook, was happiest in the dedication of its 
powers to the enlivenment of the social hour, or in the 
composition of what the French have termed Vers de 
Societe. In the ballad of " Beth Gelert," and in one or 
two of his lyrics, Spencer tried the working of a deeper 
vein, and not unsuccessfully. His verses, which are 
generally light and complimentary, have more of the 



THOMAS MOORE. 199 

sparkle and polish of Moore than those of the Smiths ; 
and bring to mind the paste-diamond conceits of Waller, 
Cowley, and Crashaw. But all tliree seem to stand much 
on the same level as poets ; and, indeed, to have adopted 
the same canons in composition, as well as the same 
field for their selection of subjects. Nor would it be easy 
to excel, in its way, either the " Retrospection" or the 
"Upas Tree" of James Smith, which are pervaded by a 
tone of rich mellow sentiment ; or the " Verses on the 
Terrace at Windsor," and the " Address to the Mummy 
at Belzoni's" of Horace, both full of strikingly graphic 
touches — the latter especially, which started into an 
instant popularity, which through thirty years it has 
maintained, in a degree second only to Wolfe's " Stanzas 
on the Burial of Sir John Moore." 

I must now retrace my steps for a good many years 
backwards, to take up the commencement of the literary 
career of one who, however, had not even by this time 
ascended to the culminating point of his reputation — I 
mean the great poet of Ireland, Thomas Moore. Perhaps 
one of the best modes of bringing out the peculiar ex- 
cellencies of his genius would be by contrasting it with 
that of Lord Byron — to whom, in the externals of 
poetry, he seemed to bear a stronger affinity than to 
any other author. But, in truth, Thomas Moore had no 
relation to Lord Byron, except by the association of 
contrast ; and when set down beside him, however 
much they may be thought to assimilate in lyrical flow 
and fervour, in choice of subjects, and in exquisite har- 
mony of expression, the marks of Moore's originality 
are sufficiently distinctive. With a more buoyant, 
brilliant, and active fancy than the author of " Childe 
Harold" and "The Corsair," Moore does not possess, in 
an equal degree, either Byron's intensity of passion or 
vigour of expression. The current of his thought, al- 
though more lively, is shallower ; his ideas float more 
on the surface of his mind. Moore is the poet of sun- 



200 moore's "odes and epistles." 

shine and summer ; Byron of tempest and desolation. 
The one revels amid the joyful forebodings of yoiithful 
hope and ardent fancy ; the other broods over the 
wreck and ruins of the human heart, until it is felt 
that "'tis something better not to be." The genius of 
Moore may be compared to the gay peacock, to the 
radiant rainbow, to the coruscations of the aurora- 
borealis amid the deep blue of the northern sky ; that 
of Byron to the chained eagle, to the devastating 
whirlwind, to the volcano blazing with tyrannic fury 
through the silence and shadows of midnight — luridly 
glaring on the affrighted earth, and evolving its sulphu- 
reous blackness over the starry canopy. 

Moore's early fancy luxuriated among the classics, and 
his elegant, spirited, and congenial translation — say 
rather paraphrase — of Anacreon was the first fruits. It 
ran through a long series of editions, and was succeeded 
by the " Odes and Epistles " in 1806, when the author 
had formed that style, so full of airy gracefulness, which 
he afterwards stamped as his own. Many of the pieces 
in this collection he has never since excelled — as the 
" Lines at the Cohos, or Falls of the Mohawk River," 
" The Epistle to Lord Strangford," " Peace and Glory," 
'•'Dead Man's Isle," and the "Canadian Boat-Song;" 
but it unfortunately includes several also, which, as sin- 
ning against delicacy and decorum, ought never to have 
been written, far less to have seen the light of publica- 
tion. That the late Lord Jeffrey branded these as they 
deserved redounds to the honour of his memory ; and it 
should not be withheld, that their author afterwards 
sincerely regretted such an act of thoughtless levity. 

As a specimen of Moore's finest early manner, I give 
the " Lines on the Falls of the Mohawk River." 

" From rise of morn, till set of sun, 
I've seen the mighty Mohawk run, 
And, as I marked the woods of pine 
Along his mirror darkly shine. 



"fudge family," "fables," and "rhymes." 201 

I Like tall and gloomy forms that pass 

\ Before the wizard's midnight glass ; 

And as I viewed the hurrying pace 

With which he ran his turbid race, 

Rushing, alike untired and wild, 

Thro' shades that frowned and flowers that smiled, 

Flying by every green recess 

That wooed him to its calm caress, 

Yet, sometimes turning with the wind, 

As if to leave a look behind! 

Oh ! I have thought, and thinking sighed — 

How like to thee, thou restless tide ! 

May be the lot, the life of him. 

Who roams along thy water's brim! 

Through what alternate shades of woe 

And flowers of joy my path may go! 

How many an humble still retreat 

May rise to court my weary feet, 

While still pursuing, still unblest, 

I wander on, nor dare to rest! 

But urgent, as the doom that calls 

Thy water to its destined falls, 

I feel the world's bewildering force 

Hurry my heart's devoted course 

From lapse to lapse, till life be done. 

And the last current cease to run! 

may my falls be bright as thine — 

May Heaven's forgiving rainbow shine 

Upon the mist that circles me, 

As soft as now it hangs o'er thee ! " 

Mr Moore next tried his hand at light, lively, and 
elegant satire, chiefly political — as in his "Twopenny 
Post-Bag," his " Fudge Family in Paris," his " Fables for 
the Holy Alliance," and his " Rhymes on the Road." 
All these are exceedingly clever in their way, and would 
have been much more pungent, had not the happy tem- 
per of the author uniformly extracted the sting of each 
sarcasm by a joke. As compounds of causticity and 



202 " LALLA BOOKH." 

point, with sprightly humour and witty illustration, 
they are, however, in their way, unexcelled. Before the 
two latter of these volumes appeared, Moore had begun 
to turn his genius to a worthier subject — the " Irish 
Melodies ; " and on the words connected with these, his 
fame with posterity may be safely permitted to rest. 
They are by no means so distinctively national as ihey 
might have been ; but, considered as poetry, it would 
be difficult to improve on most of them. I must say, 
however, that I like him in these much better as the 
amatory than the warlike bard ; and would tot give 
his " Go where glory waits thee," his " Young May 
Moon," his " Has Sorrow thy young Days shaded ? " his 
" Come, rest in this bosom," his " Vale of Avoca," his 
" When he who adores thee," and his " One fatal Re- 
membrance," for all the harps that ever rung in Tara's 
halls, or all the " Golden Collars " that ever Malachi 
" won from the fierce invader." 

In his satires Moore wields not the masculine club of 
Dryden ; nor does he approach to the moral sublime of 
Pope. His genius has much more resemblance to that 
of Matthew Prior ; and, indeed, this resemblance is 
sometimes so strong that whole pieces from either 
writer might be transposed, without much chance of 
the barter being detected. Yet I do not remember of 
having ever seen this similarity of thought, style, and 
manner, even once prominently alluded to. His lyrical 
under-tones have much more resemblance to those of 
Carew, Herrick, Lovelace, and Suckling. 

Fine as were many things he had done, yet, until the 
publication of "Lalhi Rookh," in 1817, Moore could be 
only regarded as a poet of promise. Many of the Irish 
songs were indeed surpassingly beautiful ; but they 
were mere snatches of inspiration — short, "like angel 
visits ; " and perhaps what he intended to be their 
leading attraction — their frequent allusions to remote 
Irish tradition — is in truth their greatest blemish, as 



"lalla rookh." 203 

these are often apparently forced into the ranks " like 
unwilling volunteers ;" although to the patriotic feelings 
which dictated this trait I bow with sincere admiration 
and respect. The most beautiful specimens of Moore's 
"words wed to verse'' are those in which he has un- 
bosomed sentiments and reflections, loves and longings 
and regrets, common to the whole of mankind, and 
which find, accordingly, a sympathetic echo in every 
bosom. From his versatile and active fancy, combined 
with a delicate taste and a rich and ever-ready command 
of language, it is not surprising that he has utterly 
eclipsed all cotemporary song- writers. Indeed, in this 
particular department he has no superior within the 
whole range of poetical literature save one — Robert 
Burns — who is indeed beyond him and all others, alike 
in delicacy and depth. Burns and Moore, however, 
may not unaptly be taken as the typified genii of their 
respective countries — the latter of Ireland, with its 
laughing grace, its airy light-heartedness, its gushing 
eloquence, its harp and its trefoil ; the former of Scot- 
land, more staid in mood, yet not less deep in passion, 
with the gathered wild-flowers in one hand, " a' to be 
a posie for his own dear May," and in the other the 
bearded thistle, wath its significant emblazon, "Wha 
daur meddle \\V me ? " 

After some years of studious retirement, during which 
Moore, like James Hogg in his " Queen's Wake," had 
determined to tax all his powers to the utmost for one 
grand eff'ort, " Lalla Rookh" appeared ; nor did it dis- 
appoint public expectation. The preliminary reading 
which it cost its author must have been stupendous ; 
and the greatest triumph of his genius consists in his 
having extracted from materials so bulky and so hete- 
rogeneous, such an unalloyed mass of beauty. Its great 
charm consists in the romance of its situations and 
characters, the splendour of its diction and style, and 
the prodigal copiousness of its imagery. Indeed, its 



204 " THE VEILED PROPHET." 

principal fault is want of repose ; it is overloaded with 
ornament : you cannot see the green turf for roses ; you 
cannot see the hlue heaven for stars ; and the narrative 
is thus clogged, while its interest is marred. Of the 
four stories of which " Lalla Rookh " is composed, 
" The Veiled Prophet " is the most ambitious, but 
the least successful, although it contains some rich 
and powerful passages ; and the " Fire Worshippers " 
the most varied in its transitions from tenderness to 
energy, from minute and delicate to broad and rapid 
handling. 

In the versification of " The Veiled Prophet " there is 
a luxurious laxity, a rich slovenliness, which at first 
sounds doubtfully in ears accustomed to the majestic 
energy of Dryden, the mellow sweetness of Goldsmith, 
or the classic grace of Campbell ; and, without exactly 
agreeing with Byron, that Moore did not understand 
the heroic couplet, I certainly think it the least happy 
of his measures. The tone of the greater part of the 
poem is imposing and gorgeously magnificent ; and its 
manners go far beyond even the silken luxury of the 
East ; but the scenes between Azim and Zelica, which 
bring us back to realities, are replete with chastened 
pathetic beauty ; and the conclusion, which is one of 
gentle repose, breathes over the mind a calm full of 
sweetness, like the south wind fresh from a bed of 
violets. 

To feel that Moore has wandered from his natural 
demesne in "The Veiled Prophet," we have only to 
turn to the exquisite fiction of "Paradise and the Peri" 
— of his happy things by much the happiest. It is dis- 
tinguished by all his peculiar excellencies of matter and 
manner; it is "the bright consummate flower " of his 
genius. Nothing can be finer than the pictures of the 
beautiful outcast from the celestial regions, bathing her 
white wings in the sunshine over the ruins of Palmyra 
— of the patriot expiring on the battle-field with the 



" THE FIRE WORSHIPPERS." 205 

broken blade in his grasp — or of the conscience-stricken 
prodigal surveying the sports of childhood, and, like 
" The Robber Moor," reverting with a bleeding heart to 
the days of innocence. 

" Ah! happy years ! once more who would not be a boy! " 

" The Fire Worshippers " deals more in incident than 
sentiment and action, and, as a narrative poem, thus 
brings its author more into comparison with his two 
great rivals, Scott and Byron. Hinda is a beautiful 
creation, although it would be difficult to find her pro- 
totype in the living world. She is all love, and belief, 
and tears — the embodied spirit of confiding tenderness 
— a thing of semi-celestial elements, walking in an en- 
chanted circle, and throwing around her a halo of 
unearthly beauty. The conflict between passion and 
patriotism in the bosom of her lover, the chief of the 
Guebirs, is powerfully portrayed ; and his heroic de- 
termination compels our admiration for himself, and 
our regret for Hinda. We behold him striking the last 
blow for his country's liberty, and, when bafiied in the 
attempt, amid the encompassing shades of night, throw- 
ing himself upon the funeral pyre, a sacrifice to his faith 
— the " last of a mighty line." 

" The Light of the Harem " is all air and fire, mirth 
and music, love and roses. It is a trifle, to be sure, but 
such a trifle as was most difficult to get up and manage 
— the hero a self-willed prince, and the heroine a peevish 
pouting beauty. The chief merit of the piece lies in the 
exquisite lyrics interspersed throughout. Every adjunct 
is to the highest pitch splendid, sparkling, and magnifi- 
cent ; nothing is to be heard but music ; nothing to be 
thought of but enjoyment ; nothing to be seen but the 
dazzling beauties of the East, amid moonlight fountains 
and groves of fragrance. " The Loves of the Angels " is 
a great descent from " Lalla Rookh." As a poem it is 
as the " Odyssey " to the " IHad," as the " Paradise 



206 CHARACTER OF MOORE'S GENIUS. 

Regained" to the "Paradise Lost." In the tales of 
" The Three Angels " there certainly are some brilliant 
passages ; but the interest in them is evanescent, and 
the pageant dies ofif, like pyrotechnic displays^ in mid 
air, in mere brilliant sparkles. As a moral tale, it may 
be compared to the cases reported at length in the police 
courts, that end in a reproof from the judge and the con- 
viction of the offender, but have from their subjects a 
doubtful effect on the public mind. " The Epicurean " 
is illustrated by verse, although substantially in prose. 
It seems to have been intended by the author for a 
poem, and commenced as such, but given up on his 
coming to some unmanageable incidents. It is a 
powerful and extraordinary performance, and is worthy 
to stand on the same shelf with " Vathek," although 
readers of the "Vie de Sethos," and "Les Voyages 
d'Antenor," may not accord it a pure originality, at 
least in parts. 

Many of the ancient fables — as those of Comus, of 
Orpheus, of Amphion, of Timotheus, of St Cecilia — are 
nothing more than beautiful allegorical illustrations of 
the power of poetry and music over the human mind ; 
and, in our own day, the strains of genuine inspiration 
have proved themselves to be as irresistible as ever. 
The poetry of Moore — abstracting the artificial glare 
and glitter, which are its drawbacks — is of this elevat- 
ing and ethereal kind, full of harmony, and spirit, and 
splendour ; of the heroic romantic virtues of man, and 
the clinging confiding tenderness of woman ; of the 
beauty of the inferior creatures, and the magnificence 
of nature. He seems to have drawn in with the first 
breath of existence the very spirit of gladness, which, 
operating on fervid sensibilities and a lively imagina- 
tion, has rendered him acutely alive to impressions 
from within and without, to all " the impulses of soul 
and sense." His ever buoyant effervescing spirits will 
not allow gloomy associations any permanent hold ; 



HIS "sacred songs." 207 

and they are shaken off like tlmnder-drops from the 
plumage of the swan. He ever rejoices to escape from 
the tempest into the sunshine, and to look back on the 
rainbow. He shuns the desolate bleakness of the 
December landscape, with its snow-wreaths, its frozen 
streams, its leafless trees, and its whistling wind, that 
he may luxuriate under summer suns, where nature 
spontaneously clothes herself with blossoms, spreading 
her bosom to the south, and offering up a feast to all 
that lives. His muse is like one of his own Eastern 
Peris, full of life, light, and beauty — a fro ward and rest- 
less cherub, too animated to be ever listless, and too full 
of buoyant gaiety to bestow aught but a transient tear, 
a passing sigh on the misfortunes, or crimes, or follies of 
mankind — whose delight is in the witcheries of art and 
nature ; whose flight is above the damping materialities 
of the grosser elements — whose thoughts are a concatena- 
tion of thick-blown fancies, whose syllables are music. 

The genius of Thomas Moore is essentially lyrical. In 
mind and manner he is the very antipodes of Crabbe. 
The author of " The Borough " took a supreme delight 
in picking his steps through the mire of meanness, and 
in making sketches of the most unlovely parts of the 
creation. Moore, on the contrary, preferred sitting with 
Calypso in her grot, to struggling, like Ulysses, between 
the Sicilian whirlpools. 

The " Sacred Songs " exhibit a curious combination 
of airy elegance of thought, language, and imagery 
with solemn themes. They share in the general faults 
of Moore's poetry — too much glitter and too little depth ; 
ornaments too elaborately studied, and metaphors bor- 
dering on conceit. The finest — and they are really fine 
— are " Thou that driest the Mourner's Tear," " There's 
nothing true but Heaven," and " The Dove let loose in 
Eastern Skies." 

I cannot part with Thomas Moore without giving a 
characteristic specimen of the " Melodies : " — 



208 "IRISH MELODY." 

" The young May moon is beaming, love, 
The glowworm's lamp is gleaming, love ; 

How sweet to rove 

Through Morna's grove 
While the drowsy world is dreaming, love ! 
Then awake, the heavens look bright, my dear ! 
'Tis never too late for delight, my dear ! 

And the best of all ways 

To lengthen our days 
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear I 

Now all the world is sleeping, love, 

But the sage his star- watch keeping, love ; 

And I, whose star, 

More glorious far, 
Is the eye from that casement peeping, love. 
Then awake till rise of sun, my dear ; 
The sage's glass we'll shun, my dear ; 

Or, in watching the flight 

Of bodies of light, 
He might happen to take thee for one, my dear !" 

To couclude, Thomas Moore has been styled the 
national poet of Ireland ; and so he is, in the same sense 
as Tasso is of the Venetians, or Beranger of the French, 
or Burns of our own Scotland ; for he has patriotically 
consecrated his finest powers to the exposition and illus- 
tration of Ireland's peculiar feelings and associations, 
local, personal, and traditionary. Hence he is beloved 
by his countrymen, and deserves to be so, beyond all 
Ireland's other poets — for it is only in the philosophic 
reveries of the closet that man is a cosmopolite. He 
never can be any such Utopian monster ; and from a 
thousand circumstances, it is evident that nature never 
intended he should be so, looking even at the conformity 
of colour to climate, and the productions of that climate 
to its specific wants. A Greenlauder could no more 
subsist on the rice-aud-water diet of a Hindoo, than the 
Hindoo could on the oleaginous nutriment essentiallv 



NATIONAL POETET. 209 

necessary for feeding the lamp of animal life in the 
frost-bound herbless solitude which forms the other's 
habitat ; and it is the same, in some measure, even with 
plants and the lower animals. But man is more than 
these, and has a double nature, his sensibilities sur- 
rounding him like the fingers of a polypus. The place 
of birth, the scenes of infancy, the associations of home, 
— do not these link the heart not only to a particular 
country on the world's map, but to a particular spot in 
that country, " on which the tired eye rests, and calls it 
home ! " Yes, and by a thousand Liliputian ties — each, 
it may be, like a spider's thread in tenuity, but their 
united strength is irresistible, making that home the 
dearest spot in all the world, alike to the poor 
savage, 

" whose untutored mind 

Hears God in storms, and sees Him in the wind, 
And thinks, admitted to an equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company," 

and to the modern Greek, who, unforgetful of the 
ancient glory and greatness of his ancestral country, 
weeps as he wanders over the field of Marathon. 
" Give me," said the patriotic Fletcher of Saltoun, 
strong in his knowledge of man's nature — "give me 
the making of a nation's songs, and I will leave to 
others the making of its laws." Nor can this feeling 
cease to be the same to the end of time, unless man's 
very nature changes ; for it has been the same in 
strength through all bypast ages. Jacob directed his 
bones to be carried up out of Egypt, to the sepulchral 
cave of his fathers at Machpelah. Euth, as the strongest 
proof that devoted affection could give to the mother of 
her deceased husband, exclaimed to Naomi, — " Where 
thou goest I will go, and thy country shall be my 
country." Virgil, in the exquisite line, 

*' Moritur, et moriens dulces reminiscitur Argos," 
o 



210 LOVE OF COUNTRY. 

makes his flying Greek turn, in latest thought, to the 
pleasant fields of his nativity ; and, as mentioned in a 
former lecture, John Leyden, in the delirium of a 
mortal fever at Java, was heard repeating snatclies of 
old Border songs. Verstigan mentions that a traveller 
in Palestine was once startled by a captive Scotswoman 
singing, as she dandled her baby at the door of one of 
the Arab tents, — " Oh, Bothwell bank, thou bloomest 
fair ! " and Mrs Hemans has founded one of the most 
beautiful of her lyrics on the affecting incident of 
a poor Indian in the Botanical Garden at Paris 
melting into tears at the sight of a palm-tree, which, 
heedless of the crowds around him, he rushed for- 
ward to and embraced. Rogers has exquisitely 
depictured the Savoyard boy, lingering ere he leaves 
the brow of the last hill, which overlooks "the church- 
yard yews 'neath which his fathers sleep ; " and the 
Abbe Raynal, in his " History of the West Indies," 
relates that when the Canadian Indians were asked 
to emigrate, their touchiiig reply was — " What ! shall 
we ask the bones of our fathers to arise, and go with 
us?" 

Such are the ties which are spun around the heart of 
humanity, and among the finest of its sensibilities are 
those of Poetry and Music ; and, if each be so strong 
when dissociated, their united spell must prove doubly 
so. Even among the proverbially hireling Swiss, we 
know that Xapoleon, to prevent desertion from his 
ranks, found it necessary to prohibit the chanting of 
the "Ranz des Vaches ;" and Campbell has finely said 
— and not less truly than finely — that 

" Encamped by Indian rivei's wild, 
The soldier, resting on his arms, 
In Burns's carol sweet recalls 
The songs that blest him when a child, 
And glows and gladdens at the charms 
Of Scotia's woods and waterfalls." 



BURNS AND MOORE. 211 

" One touch of nature," as Shakespeare says, " makes 
the whole world kin," and what that national music 
and that national poetry are to the Scots, that national 
poetry and that national music are to the Irish. Burns 
and Moore have, therefore, a double guarantee of 
immortality ; for they have wedded undying lays to 
undying notes, and thus not only driven the nail of 
security to the head, but have riveted it on the other 
side. 



LECTUEE V, 



New phases of the poetic mind. — Leigh Hunt ; Story of Rimini and Miscel- 
lanies. — Specimens, Funeral Procession, and The Glove. — Characteristics 
of the new school. — John Keats, Endymion, Lamia ; his untutored fancy. 
— Extracts from Eve of St Agnes, and Ode to Nightingale .- opening of 
Hyperion. — Percy Bysshe Shelley. — Alastor, Revolt of Islam, the Cenci, 
Queen Mab, and Miscellanies. — Extracts from Sensitive Plant, A Ravine. 
— His quasi-philosophy condemned. — Barry Cornwall, Dramatic Scenes, 
Sicilian Story. — Marcian Colonna, and Songs. — The Bereaved Lover,- a 
Secluded Dell ; The Pauper's Funeral. — Robert Pollok and Thomas Aird. 
—The Course of Time; extracts. Autumn Eve, Hill Prospect.— Aiid's 
imaginative poetry, Tlie Devil's Hream. — William Motherwell; William 
Kennedy; Ebenezer Elhot, Village Patriarch, and Miscellanies. — Thomas 
Hood. — Eugene Aram, opening of it ; / remember ; Flight of Miss Kil- 
mansegg ; Young Ben, a punning ballad. 

The great original English school of poetry — English in 
its language, sentiments, style, and subjects — was that 
commencing with the graphic " Canterbury Tales " of 
Chaucer ; and including Shakespeare, with the constella- 
tion of dramatists immediately before and after him — 
"Webster, Marlow, Massinger, Ben Jonson, Beaumont 
and Fletcher, Ford, and Shirley. The second was that 
of Dryden, Prior, Swift, and Pope, by which the canons 
of French criticism were acknowledged ; where art 
superseded nature ; where, even in dramatic com- 
positions, rhyme took the place of blank verse ; and in 
whose subjects the conventionalities of society held a 
place superior to the great originating principles of 
human action. The third great school was that whose 
merits I have just imperfectly discussed ; and which. 



LEIGH HUNT : 213 

finding our literature at the lowest ebb, succeeded in 
raising it to a pitch of splendour, whether we look to 
grace or originality, power or variety — at least nearly 
equalling the first. Its primal seeds, especially in the 
writings of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Scott, seem 
traceable to Germany : not so in Crabbe, Moore, 
Southey, Wilson, or Byron ; and it ripened into a 
harvest, whose garnered-up riches are destined for the 
intellectual provender of many succeeding ages. Fos- 
tered in the shadow of its noonday brilliance, and for a 
time attracting only secondary notice, a fourth school 
began to exhibit itself about thirty years ago, and since 
then has been gradually gaining an ascendancy. Some- 
what modified since its commencement it may be said 
to be, that at present existing — we dare not say 
flourishing, — seeing what we have seen in that which 
immediately preceded it, when, verily, there were 
giants in the land ; not influencing merely a class or a 
coterie, but stirring popular feeling even to its pro- 
foundest depths, and enthroning poetry for a season 
above every other branch of literature. The source of 
this new composite school was at first very distinctly 
Italian ; next blending itself with the literature of 
France ; and, lastly, with that of Germany. Such has 
been its influence that, sad it is to say, but little of the 
flavour of the original British stock is now perceptible 
among our risen or rising poets. 

I do not think we can trace an origin to this school 
— which soon comprehended among its disciples Keats, 
Shelley, and Barry Cornwall, with others of less note — 
farther back than 1816, when it showed itself in full- 
blown perfection in the " Story of Rimini," by Leigh 
Hunt — a poem which to this day remains probably the 
very best exemplar alike of its peculiar beauties and tts 
peculiar faults. 

Although previously well known as an acute dramatic 
critic, and a clever writer of occasional verses, it was by 



214 HIS CHARACTERISTICS AS A POET. 

the production of the " Story of Rimini" that Leigh 
Hunt put in his successful claim to a place among 
British poets. That he is himself truly a poet, a man 
of original and peculiar genius, there can be no possible 
doubt ; but the fountains of inspiration from which his 
urn drew much light, were Boccaccio, "he of the 
hundred tales of love ;" Dante, in whose "Inferno" is 
to be found the exquisite episode of "Francesca," which 
he expanded ; and Ariosto, from whose sparkling and 
sprightly pictures he took many of the gay, bright 
colours with which he emblazoned his own. 

With acute powers of conception, a sparkling and 
lively fancy, and a quaintly curious felicity of diction, 
the grand characteristic of Leigh Hunt's poetry is word- 
painting; and in this he is probably without a rival, 
save in the last and best productions of Keats, who con- 
tended, not vainly, with his master on that ground. In 
this respect, nothing can be more remarkable than some 
passages in "Rimini," and in his collection entitled 
"Foliage," — much of which he has since capriciously 
cancelled ; and he also exercised this peculiar faculty 
most felicitously in translations from the French and 
Italian, although, in some instances, he carried it to the 
amount of grotesqueness or affectation. His heroic 
couplet has much of the life, strength, and flexibility of 
Dryden — of whom he often reminds us ; and in it he 
follows glorious John, even to his love for triplets and 
Alexandrines. Hunt's taste, however, is very capricious ; 
and in his most charming descriptions, some fantastic or 
incongruous epithet is ever and anon thrust provokingly 
forward to destroy the unity of illusion, or to mar 
the metrical harmony. His landscapes arealike vividly 
coloured and sharply outlined ; and his figures, like the 
quaint antiques of Giotto and Cimabue, are ever placed 
in attitudes sharp and angular — where striking effect is 
preferred to natural repose. The finest passages in the 
"Story of Rimini" are the descriptions of the April 



"story of RIMINI." 215 

morning with which canto first opens ; of the Eavenna 
pine-forest, with its " immemorial trees," in canto 
second ; and of the garden and summer-house in canto 
third. Indeed, the whole of the third canto overflows 
alike with classic elegance and natural feeling ; and it 
would be difficult anywhere to find, in an English poet, 
an equal number of consecutive lines so thoroughly ex- 
cellent. The account of the funeral procession of the 
lovers, at the conclusion of the poem, is also conceived 
in a spirit of picturesque beauty, as well as of solemn 
and deep-toned tenderness : — 

" The days were then at close of autumn — still, 
A little rainy, and towards nightfall chill ; 
But now there was a moaning air abroad ; 
And ever and anon, over the road, 
The last few leaves came fluttering from the trees, 
Whose trunks, bare, wet, and cold, seemed ill at ease. 
The people who, from reverence, kept at home, 
Listened till afternoon to hear them come ; 
And hour on hour went by, and naught was heard 
But some chance horseman or the wind that stirred. 
Till towards the vesper hour ; and then, 'twas said, 
Some heard a voice that seemed as if it read ; 
And others said, that they could hear a sound 
Of many horses trampling the moist ground. 
Still nothing came : till, on a sudden, just 
As the wind opened with a rising gust, 
A voice of chanting rose, and, as it spread, 
They plainly heard the anthem for the dead. 
It was the choristers, who went to meet 
The train, and now were entering the first street. 
Then turned aside that city young and old, 
And in their lifted hands the gushing sorrow rolled." 

Of Leigh Hunt's other narrative poems — which are 
all immeasurably inferior to "Rimini" — it is not 
necessary to say much. " Hero and Leander" is a 
version of the old classic legend, in his own simple, 



216 LEIGH hunt's miscellanies. 

earnest, although occasionally mannered style, and with 
all its peculiar characteristics of quaintness and word- 
painting. "The Palfrey," a story founded on the 
antique lay of the minstrel Huon le Roi, is in a lighter 
and more buoyant strain. " The Feast of the Poets," 
and " The Feast of the Violets," written with equal 
gracefulness and spirit, record his critical and candid 
estimate of the excellencies of those who have recently 
adorned British poetry, male and female. "Captain 
Sword and Captain Pen " is a poem denouncing war 
and exhibiting some good passages, but written in a 
rambling measure which, like a cork floating on a 
sea-wave, is ever bumping up and down, in sad discord- 
ance with the gravity of the subject. Of his miscel- 
laneous pieces, the finest are, " To T. L. H., six years 
old, during sickness," which overflows with natural 
pathos ; the Oriental morceaux entitled " Mahmoud," 
and "Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel," full of 
picturesque yet delicate beauty of thought and language ; 
and several of the translations from the Italian and 
French ; but it cannot be said that Leigh Hunt has 
quite fulfilled the promise of his early genius. Instead 
of concentrating his powers, and setting himself inde- 
fatigably to the rearing of some great and glorious 
edifice, combining the poet's invention with the artist's 
skill, he has contented himself with here a honeysuckle 
cottage, and there a woodbine grotto. He shunned the 
solemn and severe, and took to the light and familiar ; 
and has at all times, and on all subjects, been most 
uncertain and capricious, alike in selection and in 
handling. With the most perfect sincerity for the 
time, with a fine genius, and the most cordial dis- 
positions, this infirmity of purpose — as it was with 
Coleridge — has been his drawback and his bane. With 
all his difiTuseness, with all his occasional languor, and all 
his provoking conceits, aflfectations, and mannerisms, it 
may be proudly claimed for Leigh Hunt that he is 



BALLAD — "the GLOVE." 217 

never commonplace ; he could not be, if he so desired 
it ; and in his happier passages, he delights by his fine 
tact, his boyish enthusiasm, his impressive imagery, 
his genial sociality, his unpretending pathos, and his 
picturesque detail. 

That Leigh Hunt can at will throw oflf much of his 
mannerism, the following spirited stanzas sufficiently 
shovr : — 

"King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport, 
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court ; 
The nobles filled the benches, and the ladies in their pride, 
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for 

whom he sighed ; 
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show, 
Valour and Love, and a king above, and the royal beasts 
bebw. 

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws ; 
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams — a wind went 

with their paws ; 
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one 

another, 
Till all the pit, with sand and mane, was in a thunderous 

smother ; 
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through 

the air ; 
Said Francis then — ' Faith, gentlemen, we're better here 

than there.' 

De Lorge's love o'erheard the king — a beauteous lively 

dame, 
"With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which always 

seemed the same : 
She thought, ' The Count, my lover, is brave as brave could 

be ; 
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love 

for me : 
King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine; 
I'll drop my glove to prove his love — great glory will be 

mine.' 



211 



JOHN KEA.TS. 



She dropped her glove to prove his love, then looked at 

hire and smiled; 
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild : 
The leap was quick — return was quick — he has regained 

the place. 
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's 

face. 
* By heaven ! ' said Francis, ' rightly done ! ' and he rose 

from where he sat — 
' No love,' quoth he, 'but vanity, sets love a task like that.' " 

Schiller's version of this striking anecdote is nearer 
the oi'iginal, copied by St Foix from Brantome ; but 
Leigh Hunt has certainly improved it in spirit and 
picturesqueness. 

It is very evident that John Keats, the greatest of all 
our poets who have died in early youth — not excepting 
Michael Bruce, Kirke White, or Chatterton — imbibed 
in boyhood a sincere admiration for the poetry of 
Leigh Hunt, and primarily adopted him as his model 
in style and diction ; although, ere he ventured before 
the public, he had considerably altered and modified, 
or rather extended his views on these matters, by a 
reverential study of the antique English pastoral poets, 
Drayton, Spenser, and William Browne — the last of 
whom he especially followed in the selection of his 
imagery, aud the varied harmony of his numbers. 
Crude, unsustained, and extravagant as these juvenile 
attempts in most part are, we have ever and anon 
indications of a fine original genius. His garden, 
though unweeded, is full of freshness and fragrance ; 
the bind-weed strangles the mignonette ; and docks 
and dandelions half conceal the yellow cowslip and 
the purple violet ; but we are wooed to this corner by 
the bud of the moss-rose, and to that by the double 
wallflower. We feel it to be a wilderness ; but it is a 
wilderness of many sweets. I allude here more par- 
ticularly to his first little volume, published in 1817, 



"endtmion/' a romance. 219 

with a head of Spenser on the title-page, and dedicated 
to Leigh Hunt. 

Images of majesty and beauty continued to crowd 
on the imagination of the young poet ; but either his 
taste in selection was deficient, or he shrank from the 
requisite labour ; and in the following year appeared 
his "Endymion," a poetic romance. It would be 
difficult to point out anywhere a work more remark- 
able for its amount of beauties and blemishes, inex- 
tricably intertwined. Its mythology is Greek, and its 
imagery the sylvan -pastoral — reminding ns now of the 
pine-flavoured Idyllia of Theocritus, and now of the 
" bosky bournes and bushy dells " of Milton's " Comus." 
Preparatory to its composition, he had saturated his 
mind with the " leafy luxury " of our early dramatists ; 
and we have many reflections of the ruial beauty and 
repose pervading "The Faithful Shepherdess " of Flet- 
cher, and " The Sad Shepherd " of Ben Jonson ; as well 
as of the early Milton of the " Arcades " and "Lycidas." 
We are entranced with the prodigal profusion of ima- 
gery, and the exquisite variety of metres sweeping 
along with an -^olian harmony, at once so refined 
and yet seemingly so inartificial. All is, however, 
a wild luxurious revel merely, where Imagination 
laughs at Taste, and bids defiance to Judgment and 
Reason. There is no discrimination, no selection — 
even the very rhymes seem sometimes to have sug- 
gested the thoughts that follow ; and whatever comes 
uppermost comes out, provided it be florid, gorgeous, 
or glittering. The work is a perfect mosaic of bright 
tints and graceful forms, despotically commingled, 
almost without regard to plan or congruity ; so that 
we often lose the thin thread of story altogether in 
the fentastic exuberance of ornament and decoration. 
Ever and anon, however, we come to bits of exquisite 
beauty — patches of deep, serene blue sky, amid the 
rolling clouds, which compel us to pause in admir- 



220 "lamia," "ISABELLA," ETC. 

ation — glimpses of nature full of tenderness and truth 
— touches of sentiment deep as they are delicate. His 
opening line, "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," 
conveys a fine philosophic sentiment, and is the key- 
note to the whole body of his poetry. Crude, unequal, 
extravagant, nay, absurd as he sometimes is — for there 
is scarcely an isolated page in " Endymion " to which 
one or more of these harsh epithets may not in some 
degree be justly applied — yet, on the other hand, it 
would be difficult to point out any twenty lines in 
sequence unredeemed by some happy turn of thought, 
some bright image, or some eloquent expression. 

That all this was the result of imaginative wealth 
and youthful inexperience, is demonstrated by the 
last poems John Keats was permitted to give the 
world, and which are as rich, but much more select, 
in imagery, purer in taste, and more fastidious in 
diction, as well as more felicitous and artistic. He 
had found out that, to keep interest alive, it was 
necessary to deal less with the shadowy, the remote, 
and the abstract ; and that without losing in dignity, 
he might descend more to the thoughts aud feelings — 
nay, even to the ways, and habits, and language of 
actual life. From the pure mythological of *• Endy- 
mion " he attempted a blending of the real with the 
supernatural in "Lamia," and exactly with the degree 
of success which might, in the management of such 
elements, have been expected from him. "Isabella, or 
the Pot of Basil," his version of Boccaccio's exquisite 
little story, is much less questionable. We have therein 
character and incident as well as description ; and to 
these the last is made subordinate. We there also see, 
for the first time, that instead of playing with his 
theme, he has set himself in earnest to grapple with it. 
The composition is more elaborate, and we have a selec- 
tion of thoughts and images instead of the indiscrimi- 
nate pouring forth of all. The faults of affectation and 



"eve of ST AGNES." 221 

quaintness, although not entirely got rid of, are there 
less glaring and offensive ; and along with the mere 
garniture of fancy, we have a story of human interest, 
of love and revenge and suffering, well though pecu- 
liarly told. In this poem he wonderfully triumphed 
over his earlier besetting frailties — want of precision 
and carelessness of style — and exhibited such rapid 
strides of improvement, as enable us to form some pro- 
bable estimate of what his genius might have achieved, 
had he been destined to reach maturer years. 

His two latest were also his two most perfect com- 
positions, yet completely opposite in their character — 
"The Eve of St Agnes," of the most florid Gothic, 
remarkable for its sensuous beauty ; and " Hyperion," 
a fragment equally remarkable for its Greek severity and 
antique solemnity of outline. To the same latest period 
of his strangely fevered and brief career — for he died at 
twenty-four — are referable the four exquisite odes, " To 
a Nightingale," " To a Grecian Urn," " To Melancholy," 
and "To Autumn," — all so pregnant with deep thought, 
so picturesque in their limning, and so suggestive. 

Let us take three stanzas from "The Eve of St 
Agnes." They describe Madeline at her devotions 
before lying down to sleep on that charmed night. 
She has just entered her chamber, when — 

" Out went the taper as she hurried in ; 

Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died; 

She closed the door, she panted, all akin 

To spirits of the air and visions wide; 

No uttered syllable, or, woe betide ! 

But to her heart her heart was voluble, 

Paining with eloquence her balmy side; 

As though a tongueless nightingale should swell 
Her throat in vain and die, heart-stifled in her cell. 

A casement high and triple-arched there was, 
All garlanded with carven imageries 



222 "ode to a nightingale." 

Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, 
And diamonded with panes of quaint device 
Innumerable, of stains and splendid dyes. 
As are the tiger-moth's deep damasked wings ; 
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, 
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings, 
A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens andkings. 

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, 
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, 
As down she knelt in Heaven's grace and boon ; 
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest. 
And on her silver cross soft amethyst, 
And on her hair a glory like a saint ; 
She seemed a splendid angel newly drest. 
Save wings, for heaven ; Porphyro grew faint, 
She knelt so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint." 

We have here a specimen of descriptive power luxu- 
riously rich and original ; but the following lines, from 
the " Ode to a Nightingale," flow from a far more pro- 
found fountain of inspiration. After addressing the 
bird as a 

" light- winged Dryad of the trees, 
In some melodious plot 
Of beechen green and shadows numberless, 
Singing of summer in full-throated ease," 

he adds, somewhat fantastically, it must be owned, at 
first — 

" Oh, for a beaker full of the warm south, 
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, 
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim. 
And purple-stained mouth, 
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen. 
And with thee fade away into the forest dim. 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget, 

What thou amongst the leaves hast never known, 

The weariness, the fever, and the fret, 

Here, where men sit, and hear each other groan ; 



KEATS' UNTUTORED FANCY. 223 

Where Palsy shakes a few sad last grey Lah'S, 
Where youth grows pale aud spectre-thin, and dies ; 

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow, 
And leaden-eyed despairs; 
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, 

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird ! 

No hungry generations tread thee down ; 
The voice I hear this passing night was heard 

In ancient days by emperor and clown ; 
Perhaps the self-same song, that found a path 
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, 
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ; 
The same that oft-times hath 
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam 
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn. 

Forlorn ! the very word is like a spell 

To toll one back from thee to my sole self ! 
Adieu ! the fancy cannot cheat so well 
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. 
Adieu ! adieu ! thy plaintiff anthem fades 
Past the near meadow, over the hill stream, 
Up the hill-side ; and now 'tis buried deep 
In the next valley's glades : 
Was it a vision or a waking dream 1 

Fled is that music ; — do I wake or sleep ? " 

In his earlier pieces Keats was too extrainundaue — 
too fond of the visionary. His fancy and feelings rioted 
in a sort of sun-coloured cloudland, where all was gor- 
geous and glowing, rose-tinctured or thunderous ; but 
ever most indistinct, and often incomprehensible, save 
when regarded as dream-like imaginings — the morning 
reveries of a young enthusiast. His genius, however, 
was gradually coming under the control of judgment ; 
his powers of conception and of expression were alike 
maturing ; and his heart was day by day expanding to 
the genial influences of healthy simple nature. A large 



224 EXTRACT FROM "HYPERION." 

portion of what he has left behind is crude, unconcocted, 
and unsatisfactory, exhibiting rather poetical materials 
than poetical superstructure ; but his happier strains 
vindicate the presence of a great poet in something 
more than embryo. Which of our acknowledged mag- 
nates, if cut off at the same age, would have left so 
much really excellent ? Altogether, whether we regard 
his short fevered life, or the quality of his genius, John 
Keats was assuredly one of the most remarkable men in 
the range of our poetical literature ; nor, while taste and 
sensibility remain in the world, can ever his prediction 
of his own fate be verified, when he dictated his epitaph 
as that of one " whose name was written in water." 

As an example of Keats' severer manner, I give the 
magnificent portrait of Saturn, with which " Hyperion " 
opens. In the same fragment we find several other 
passages equally grand and solemn. 

" Deep in the shady sadness of a vale 
Far sunken from the healthy breath of mom, 
Far from the fiery noon and eve's one star, 
Sat grey-haired Saturn, quiet as a stone, 
Still as the silence round about his lair ; 
Forest on forest hung about his head 
Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there. 
Not so much life as on a summer's day 
Robs not one light seed from the feathered grass, 
But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. 
A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more 
By reason of his fallen divinity 
Spreading a shade : the Naiad 'mid her reeds 
Pressed her cold finger closer to her lips. 

Along the margin-sand large foot-marks went, 
No further than to where his feet had strayed, 
And slept there since. Upon the sodden ground 
His old right hand lay nerveless, listless, dead, 
Unsceptred ; and his realmless eyes were closed ; 
While his bowed head seemed Hstening to the eai*th. 
His ancient mother, for some comfort yet." 



PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 225 

Almost at the identical time with John Keats, two 
other poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Bryan Waller 
Proctor, better known as Barry Cornwall, appeared 
before the world. Shelley took to the bare uplands of 
imaginative philosophy ; Cornwall, less ambitiously, 
chose the flowery valleys of fancy and feeling. 

The subject of "Alastor," Shelley's earliest acknow- 
ledged poem, and one of his best, is, like that of Words- 
worth's " Prelude," the development of a poet's mind, 
but much more vaguely and indefinitely broughtbefore 
us. Even in this youthful production we have much of 
the mastery of diction, the picturesqueness of descrip- 
tion, and the majestic imaginative gorgeousness or grace 
for which his maturer writings were distinguished. Its 
general aim is visionary and obscure, unless it may be 
found in a search after ideal perfection — some unap- 
proachable and unattainable good — some Utopia of the 
imagination. Equally peculiar in thought, style, and 
invention, and even less attractive than " Alastor," from 
the absence of human interest — however higher as a 
literary effort — was the allegorical poem, entitled " The 
Revolt of Islam." It was an unhappy attempt to blend 
poetry with metaphysics ; — unhappy, as in it the former 
has been almost sacrificed to the latter, and much fine 
thought and imagery thus literally entombed. He is 
anything but lucid or happy in the management of the 
plot or the arrangement of the incidents ; but where it 
escapes from its so-called philosophy, which, when com- 
prehensible, is utterly weak and worthless, the poem 
exhibits various passages remarkable for high imagina- 
tive passionate earnestness, or picturesque beauty ; while 
some of its narrative portions are of almost equal excel- 
lence, as the early loves of Laon and Cythna — the por- 
trait of the tyrant Othman sitting alone, with the little 
child in his palace hall — and the river voyage, towards 
the conclusion of the last canto. 

The next production of this wayward, misguided, and 



226 TEAGEDT OF "THE CENCI." 

singular raan was his tragedy of " The Cenci," — in sub- 
ject, sufficiently indicative of the morbid perversion of 
his taste — in execution, the most able and elaborate of 
all his writings. Not only in exquisite description, but 
in dramatic energy, it may stand comparison with al- 
most anything recent times have produced ; but these 
excellencies are rendered literally nugatory, from the 
repulsive horror with which its successive scenes are 
approached. To the intellectual sublime, it is what the 
Newgate Calendar is to the moral sublime; and because 
sheer monstrosities have been depictured, nay, minutely 
dwelt on in the grosser writings of former ages, it seems 
to have been thought that no apology was necessary for 
transferring them to our own. In the " (Edipus Tyran- 
nus" of Sophocles to be sure, in the "Hippolytus" of 
Euripides, in the " Bride of Messina" of Schiller, in the 
"Mirra" of Alfieri, in the "Manfred" and "Parisina" 
of Byron, and in one or two of our early dramatists, the 
same dangerous tract of thought has been glimpsed 
upon ; but surely these are only as lurid beacons to 
warn right feeling and tasteful propriety from such a 
bleak and forbidding territory. No man can plead any 
better apology for the use of such machinery, for the 
jnirpose of exciting the tragic emotions of pity or terror, 
than he could, were he to exhibit the rack and guillo- 
tine on the stage, and to describe all the horrible minutiae 
of inquisitorial torture. Except for the diseased state of 
Shelley's temperament, such things could not possibly 
have been, even with him — for he also possessed feelings 
at times apparently totally in opposition to these ; and 
I can quite agree with Mr Leigh Hunt, when he says 
of this same tragedy, that — " Otherwise besides grandeur 
and terror, there are things in it lovely as heart can 
worship ; and the author showed himself able to draw 
both men and women, whose names would have become 
' familiar in our mouths as household words.' The 
utmost might of gentleness and of the sweet habitudes 



THE "PROMETHEUS UNBOUND." 227 

of domestic affection, was never more balmily impressed 
through the tears of the reader, than in the unique and 
divine close of that dreadful tragedy. Its loveliness, 
being that of the highest reason, is superior to the mad- 
ness of all the crime that has preceded it, and leaves 
nature in a state of reconcilement with her ordinary 
course." 

With much of the beautiful and true — with much of 
Animation and force of passion, and fine touches of 
nature and picturesque description, the eclogue of 
" Rosalind and Helen" has the same detracting quali- 
ties of the perverted in taste and the repulsive as well 
as the extravagant in incident. 

The "Prometheus Unbound," a lyrical drama in four 
acts, was intended, as we are told by Shelley himself, to 
make his hero " the type of the highest perfection of 
moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest 
and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends." 
It hence differs from the lost drama of ^Bschylus on 
the same subject, whose purpose was merely to com- 
memorate the reconciliation of Jupiter with his victim, 
on his disclosing the danger threatened to his empire by 
the consummation of his marriage with Thetis. With 
much of the simple and severe Greek spirit, and with 
several splendid soliloquies, descriptions, and lyrical 
effervescences, it is, for the most part, unsubstantial and 
wire-drawn, and to me as unintelligible as not a few of 
the superlatively metaphysical reveries of Plato, Kant, 
and Coleridge, of which last amiable dreamer, Southey, 
judging from his own experiences, not unaptly says, in 
writing to a philosophical inquirer, " If you can get at 
the kernel of his ' Friend,' and his ' Aids to Reflection,' 
you may crack peach-stones without any fear of crack- 
ing your teeth." We have shadows of power, rather 
than power itself — little that is real or tangible, or ap- 
pertaining either to the beauty or majesty of physical 
nature; nothing to touch our hearts, or awaken our 



228 SHELLEY'S MINOR POEMS. 

sympathies. All is mystic, ideal, involved, remote, 
cloudy, or abstract. We have the sun, but it is hid in 
rolling vapours — we have the moon, but it shines only 
on glittering snow. So recondite does Shelley some- 
times become, that even language itself, of which he was 
one of the greatest masters — greater, perhaps, than even 
Thomas De Quincey — occasionally breaks down under 
him ; and his diction, from being smooth, and pearly, 
and transparent, gets harsh, perplexed, misty, or mean- 
ingless ; as if, in his attempts to make his style Orphic 
and primeval, he passed, even in words, beyond the 
boundaries of creation and sunshine, into " Chaos and 
old night." He is, assuredly, the most ethereal of all our 
poets, alike in imagery and language ; his imagery dealing 
principally with elemental nature, while his language, 
in delicate tenuity, seems almost fitted to describe dis- 
solving views, as they " come like shadows, so depart." 
The other larger productions of Shelley, his " Queen 
Mab," his " Adonais," his " Hellas," his " Witch of 
Atlas," and his " Julian and Maddalo," are all more or 
less characterised by the same beauties and defects ; and 
these defects, in my opinion, unfitted him for ever 
successfully overcoming the difficulties of a long poem. 
Even now, he is principally remembered by his lesser 
works — his " Sensitive Plant," his " Skylark," his 
" Cloud," his " Marianne's Dream," his lines " To a 
Lady with a Guitar," his " Stanzas written in dejection 
at Naples," and his " Lines to an Indian Air ;" and it 
has been well said of him, that " he has single thoughts 
of great depth and force, single images of rare beauty, 
detached passages of extreme tenderness ; and that in 
his smaller pieces, where he has attempted little, he 
has done most." It would be difficult to excel several 
isolated stanzas in the " Address to the Skylark ;" but 
" The Sensitive Plant" and " The Cloud"' are, in my 
opinion, by far the most exquisite and original of all 
his conceptions : they approach, as nearly as possible, 



"the sensitive plant." 229 

to what has been somewhat quaintly denominated 
" pure poetry ;" and are as unique, in their wild 
ethereal beauty, as the " Kilmeny" of Hogg, or " The 
Ancient Marinere" of Coleridge. 

I am aware, that quoting a few stanzas from the 
" Sensitive Plant " can only call to mind the pedant 
in the Facetice of Hierocles, who carried about a brick 
with him in the market-place, as a specimen of the 
building he had for sale. But we venture on it, and 
take part of the catalogue of flowers. 

" A sensitive plant in a garden grew, 
And the young winds fed it with silver dew ; 
And it opened its fan-hke leaves to the light, 
And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 

And the spring arose on the garden fair, 
Like the spirit of love felt everywhere. 
And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast, 
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 

The snow-drop, and then the violet 
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet. 
And their breath was mixed with fresh odour sent 
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 

Then the pied wind-flowers, and the tuhp tall, 
And narcissi, the fairest among them all. 
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, 
Till they die of their own dear loveliness ; 

And the JSTaiad-like lily of the vale. 
Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale, 
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
Through their pavilions of tender green ; 

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, 
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense. 
It was felt like an odour within the sense ; 

And the rose, like a nymph to the bath addrest, 
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare; 



230 "a ravine." 

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, 
As a Moenad, its moonlight coloured cup, 
Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky ; 

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, 
The sweetest flower for scent that blows ; 
And all rare blossoms, from every clime, 
Grew in that garden in perfect prime." 

So much for his taste in the delicate and refined of 
description : now for his power in the stern and 
severe : — 

" I remember 
Two miles on this side of the fort, the road 
Crosses a deep ravine ; 'tis rough and narrow, 
And winds with short turns down the precipice ; 
And in its depth there is a mighty rock, 
Which has, from unimaginable years. 
Sustained itself with terror and with toil 
Over a gulf, and with the agony 
With which it clings seems slowly coming down ; 
Even as a wretched soul, hour after hour. 
Clings to the mass of life ; yet clinging, leans, 
And, leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss 
In which it fears to fall. Beneath this crag, 
Huge as despair, as if in weariness 
The melancholy mountain yawns. Below 
You hear, but see not, the impetuous torrent 
Raging among the caverns; and a bridge 
Crosses the chasm ; and high above these grow, 
With intersecting trunks, from crag to crag, 
Cedars and yews and pines, whose tangled hair 
Is matted in one solid roof of shade 
By the dark ivy's twine. At noonday here 
'Tis twihght, and at sunset blackest night." 

Such were Shelley's powers, when legitimately 
directed ; but unfortunately it is rarely that he thus 
writes ; and a much higher place has been claimed for 
the great mass of his verse than it seems to me to be at 



Shelley's principles 231 

all entitled to. Gorgeous, graceful, and subtle qualities 
it indeed invariably possesses — and no one can be more 
ready to admit them than I am ; but he had only a 
section of the essential properties necessary to constitute 
a master in the art. The finest poetry is that (whatever 
critical coteries may assert to the contrary, and it is 
exactly the same with painting and sculpture) which is 
most patent to the general understanding, and hence to 
the approval or disapproval of the common sense of 
mankind. We have only to try the productions of 
Shakespeare, of Milton, of Dryden, of Pope, of Gray and 
Collins, of Scott, Burns, Campbell, and Byron — indeed, 
of any truly great writer whatever in any language, by 
this standard — to be convinced that such must be the 
case. — Verse that will not stand being read aloud before 
a jury of common-sense men, is — and you may rely 
upon the test — wanting in some great essential quality. 
It is here that the bulk of the poetry of Shelley — and 
not of him only, but of most of those who have succeeded 
him in his track as poets — is, when weighed in the 
balance, found wanting. And why? Because these 
writers have left the highways of truth and nature, 
and, seeking the by-lanes, have there, mistaking the 
uncommon for the valuable, bowed down to the idols 
of affectation and false taste. 

I make this remark here, because I think that 
Shelley had much to do in the indoctrinating of those 
principles which have mainly guided our poetical aspi- 
rants of late years — sadly to their own disadvantage 
and the public disappointment. Shelley was un- 
doubtedly a man of genius — of very high genius — but 
of a peculiar and unhealthy kind. It is needless to 
disguise the fact, and it accounts for all — his mind was 
diseased : he never knew, even from boyhood, what it 
was to breathe the atmosphere of healthy life, to have 
the mens sana in corpore sano. His sensibilities were 
over acute ; his morality was thoroughly morbid ; his 



232 AND DOCTEINES. 

metaphysical speculations illogical, incongruous, incom- 
prehensible — alike baseless and objectless. The suns 
and systems of his universe Avere mere nebulae ; his 
continents were a chaos of dead matter ; his oceans " a 
world of waters, and without a shore." For the law of 
gravitation — that law which was to preserve the planets 
in their courses — he substituted some undemonstrable 
dream-like reflection of a dream, which he termed 
intellectual beauty. Life, according to him, was a phan- 
tasmagoria! pictured vision — mere colours on the sunset 
clouds; and earth a globe hung on nothing — self- 
governing, yet, strange to say, without laws. It is 
gratuitous absurdity to call his mystical speculations a 
search after truth ; they are no such thing ; and are 
as little worth the attention of reasoning and respon- 
sible man as the heterogeneous reveries of nightmare. 
They are a mere flaring up in the face of all that 
Revelation has mercifully disclosed, and all that sober 
Reason has confirmed. Shelley's faith was a pure 
psychological negation, and cannot be confuted, simply 
because it asserts nothing ; and, under the childish idea 
that all the crime, guilt, and misery of the world resulted 
from — what ? — not the depravity of individuals, but 
from the very means, civil and ecclesiastical, by which 
these, in all ages and nations, have been at least 
attempted to be controlled, he seemed to take an insane 
delight in selecting, for poetical illustration, subjects 
utterly loathsome and repulsive ; and which religion 
and morality, the virtuous and the pure, the whole 
natural heart and spirit of upright man, either rises up 
in rebellion against, or shrinks back from instinctively, 
and with horror. 

The poetry of Barry Cornwall is of a much less 
ambitious, but far more genial character than that of 
Shelley; it clings only to what is lovable in our 
nature, and hence approximates by at least one-half 
nearer to that of Hunt and Keats. But, like every 



BARRY CORNWALL. 233 

true poet, however he may be influenced by the lights 
from without reflected on hiui, he has a path of his 
own ; and his verse is characterised by definite and 
distinctive features. His chief models in thought and 
in tone of feeling, as well as in viewing and describing 
objects, seem to have been the early Italian writers, 
more especially Boccaccio with his naive narrative 
simplicity ; and our older dramatists, Fletcher, Massin- 
ger, and Ben Jonson, in their tender and gentler 
moods, and in their lyrical measures quaintly natural, 
or fantastically pathetic. Nor are indications of the 
impressions made on him by his contemporaries, 
Wordsworth, Byron, and Coleridge, quite undiscoverable. 
For the recondite variations and the exquisite melody 
of his rhymes and metres, Barry Cornwall has been 
seldom equalled. We are carried away as it were by 
the song of the Syrens, or old Timotheus ; and hence 
it is, that he is one of the very few authors who, by 
adapting his tone to the chronology and nature of his 
subjects, reconciles us, "by the consecration and the 
poet's dream, " to the substitution of pictures, Elysian 
in their softness and harmony, for actual representations 
of human life. Wood, water, sky, and ocean, all are 
invested with the glowing colours of romance ; and 
human life, under his touch, becomes but a panoramic 
pageantry of love and beauty, of heroism and gentle- 
ness ; of sympathetic sorrow and angelic resignation. 
Almost all his delineations relate either to the mytho- 
logical eras, or to the chivalrous and romantic ; and in 
him a taint of mannerism and quaintness seems not 
only pardonable, but graceful and becoming ; being to 
his themes as congenial as the wild flavour of heather 
to mountain honey. 

"The Dramatic Scenes," his earliest, is in several 
respects still his best work ; for they were evident 
overflowings from his feelings and fancy, and are written 
con amove. Besides this, they had the charm of novelty, 



234 "SICILIAN STORY." 

and bewitched all finer sensibilities by being so 
thoroughly tinctured with " Elysian beauty, melan- 
choly grace. " Rich and ornate — nay, almost arabesque 
— as the language of these dialogues may be said to be, 
we somehow or other tacitly acquiesce in its dramatic 
fitness ; and, although aware of being lulled into a kind 
of half-dream, would rather not be awakened out of it. 
The three finest are '' The Way to Conquer," " The Two 
Dreams," and far before either of these, "The Broken 
Heart," which combines all the richness of an autumnal 
moonlight with all the softness of a morning reverie ; 
and which, in tender pathos, was never excelled even 
by Massinger himself. 

Nor far behind "The Dramatic Scenes," in the cha- 
racteristics of gentle but passionate earnestness, of refined 
sentiment, of picturesque situation, and exquisite har- 
mony of st\ie, are the " Sicilian Story," "Marcian Col- 
lonna," and the serious portion of " Diego de Montilla ; " 
for wit and humour, whatever he may himself think, 
lie not in our author's way. It is thus that he outlines 
the sequestration of a bereaved lover — 

** He lived in solitude, 
And scarcely quitted his ancestral home. 

Though many a friend, and many a lady woo'd, 
Of birth and beauty, yet he would not I'oam 

Beyond the neighbouring hamlet's churchyard rude ; 
And there the stranger still on one low tomb 

May read ' Aurora ; ' whether the name he drew 

From mere conceit of grief, or not, none knew. 

Perhaps 'twas a mere memorial of the past ; 

Such Love and Sorrow fashion, and deceive 
Themselves with words, until they grow at last 

Content with mocks alone, and cease to grieve ; 
Such madness in its wiser mood will cast, 

Making its fond credulity believe 
Things unsubstantial. 'T was— no matter what — 
Something to hallow that lone burial spot. 



" RURAL SECLUSION." 235 

He grew familiar with the bird, the brute 
Knew well its benefactor; and he'd feed 

And make acquaintan.ce with the fishes mute ; 
And, like the Thracian Shepherd, as we read, 

Drew with the music of his stringed lute, 
Behind him winged things, and many a tread 

And tramp of animal ; and, in his hall, 

He was a Lord indeed, beloved by all. 

In a high solitary turret, where 

None were admitted, would he muse, when first 
The young day broke ; perhaps because he there 

Had in his early infancy been nursed. 
Or that he felt more pure the morning air, 

Or loved to see the Great Apollo burst 
From out his cloudy bondage, and the night 
Hurry away before the conquering light. 

But oftener to a gentle lake, that lay 

Cradled within a forest's bosom, he 
Would, shunning kind reproaches, steal away ; 

And, when the inland breeze was fresh and free. 
There would he loiter all the livelong day. 

Tossing upon the waters listlessly. 
The swallow dashed beside him, and the deer 
Drank by his boat, and eyed him without fear. 

It was a soothing place : the summer hours 
Passed there in quiet beauty, and at night 

The moon ran searching by the woodbine bowers, 
And shook o'er all the leaves her kisses bright, 

O'er lemon blossoms and faint myrtle flowers; 
And there the west wind often took its flight, 

While heaven's clear eye was closing; while above, 

Pale Hesper rose, the evening light of love. 



'Twas solitude be loved where'er he strayed,- 
No danger daunted, and no pastime drew, 

And ever on that fair heart-broken maid, 
(Aurora), who unto the angels flew 



236 "a pauper's funeral." 

Away so early, with grief unallayed 

He thought ; and in the sky's eternal blue 
Would look for shapes, till at times before him she 
Rose like a beautiful reality." 

Having given from Shelley a landscape sketch of 
secluded grandeur and magnificence, as indicative of 
that poet's habits of thought and peculiar manner, I 
add the following by Barry Cornwall — not by way of 
contrast, but as a companion picture. The place de- 
scribed had been a scene of murder. 

" It was a spot like those romancers paint, 
Or painted, when of dusky knights they told, 
Wandering about in forests old, 

When the last purple colour was waxing faint, 
And day was dying in the west ; the trees 
(Dark pine, and chestnut, and the dwarfed oak. 

And cedar), shook their branches, till the shade 

Looked like a spirit, and living, as it played, 
Seemed holding dim communion with the breeze : 

Below, a tumbling i-iver rolled along, 
(Its course by lava rocks and branches broke). 

Singing for aye its fierce and noisy song." 

Nor can I resist quoting the three following exquisite 
stanzas as a specimen of Barry Cornwall's very best 
manner — they are from his poem of " Gyges." 

" It is a chilling thing to see, as I 

Have seen — a man go down into the grave 

Without a tear, or even an altered eye : 

Oh i sadder far than when fond women rave, 

Or children weep, or aged parents sigh. 

O'er one whom art and love doth strive to save 

In vain : man's heart is soothed by every tone 

Of pity, saying ' he's not quite alone.' 

I saw a pauper once, when I was young. 

Borne to his shallow grave : the bearers trod 

Smihng to where the death-bell heavily rung ; 
And soon his bones were laid beneath the sod : 



4 



i 



CHARACTER OP CORNWALL'S POETRY. 237 

On the rough boards the earth was gaily flung ; 

Methought the prayer wliich gave bim to his God 
Was coldly said ; — then all, passing away, 
Left the scarce coffined wretch to quick decay. 

It was an autumn evening, and the rain 

Had ceased awhile, but the loud winds did shriek, 

And called the deluging tempest back again ; 

The flag-staff on the churchyard tower did creak, 

And through the black clouds ran a lightning vein- 
And then the flapping raven came to seek 

Its home : its flight was heavy, and its wing 

Seemed weary with a long day's wandering." 

During the last quarter of a century — (alas ! for Mr 
Proctor, and parchments, writs, and affidavits !) — Barry 
Cornwall has only come before the public in short 
snatches of song — " Sybilline Leaves," scattered through 
many tomes, where they have wooed and won their way 
to the thoughtful hearts of many a wintry hearth ; and 
some of them wed to music, as " The Sea," " King 
Death," and " The Stormy Petrel," have attained a 
popular acceptance scarcely excelled by Moore and 
Haynes Bayley. Yet, confessedly fine as many of these 
latter lyrical effusions are, they have for the most part 
an air of unnatural buoyancy and fantastic jauntiness 
about them, scarcely quite pleasing or satisfactory, and 
do not appear to me entitled to rank in excellence with 
« The Dream," with " Marcelia," " The Sleeping Figure 
of Modena," and many other of the same author's earlier 
productions. 

The precis of this poet's character by Lord Jeffrey I 
regard as so just and perfect, that I cannot resist quoting 
it ; more especially as, of late years, there seems to have 
arisen some unaccountable but futile tendency to under- 
rate him, for the sake of the glorification of others, un- 
questionably not more deserving. 

"If it be the peculiar province of poetry to give 
delight," says that eloquent critic, " this author should 



238 POLLOK AND AIRD. 

rank very high among our poets ; and in spite of his 
neglect of the terrible passions, he does rank very high 
in our estimation. He has a beautiful fancy and a 
beautiful diction, and a fine ear for the music of verse, 
and great tenderness and delicacy of feeling. He seems, 
moreover, to be altogether free from any tincture of 
bitterness, rancour, or jealousy ; and never shocks us 
with atrocity, or stiffens us with horror, or confounds 
us with the dreadful sublimities of demoniacal energy. 
His soul, on the contrary, seems filled to overflo\ring 
with images of love and beauty, and gentle sorrows, and 
tender pity, and mild and holy resignation. The cha- 
racter of his poetry is to soothe and melt and delight ; 
to make us kind and thoughtful and imaginative ; to 
purge away the dregs of our earthly passions by the 
refining fires of a pure imagination ; and to lap us up 
from the eating cares of life, in visions so soft and bright 
as to sink like morning dreams on our senses, and at 
the same time so distinct, and truly fashioned upon the 
eternal patterns of nature, as to hold their place before 
our eyes long after they have again been opened on the 
dimmer scenes of the world." 

To this 1 would only add, that if one of the surest 
tests of fine poetry — and I know no better — be that of 
impressing the heart and fancy, Barry Cornwall must 
rank high ; for there are few to whose pages the young 
and ardent reader would more frequently and fondly 
recur, or which so tenderly impress themselves on the 
tablets of memory. 

Almost totally opposed in style, manner, and subject, 
to the four poets I have last mentioned, are the two 
that next follow— PoUok and Aird. The former has 
gained a popularity far beyond what even his most 
sanguine admirers could have ventured to anticipate ; 
the latter most assuredly less than his high genius 
entitles him to. Much, however, is to be referred to 
the class of subjects that each has chosen to illustrate. 



" THE COURSE OF TIME :" 239 

The air we have been breathing in the writings of 
Hunt, Keats, Cornwall, and Shelley, can scarcely be 
said to appertain to Britain. Their skies have a deep 
Ausonian blue, and are not vaporous and clouded ; 
their breezes, instead of being scented by the moun- 
tain heather, are redolent of myrtle flowers and orange 
groves. All their associations are with the sunny south 
— those of Aird and Pollok with the hardy north ; and 
between them there is not a wider contrast than be- 
tween the imperial purple robes of Rome, and the plain 
black cloak of Geneva. 

Aird and Pollok were personal friends, and, I believe, 
fellow- students ; and their appearance in the literary 
world was nearly about the same time — Aird, in his 
" Religious Characteristics, " Pollok in his "Course of 
Time " — both of which remarkable works I delight to 
remember having had the privilege of perusing in 
manuscript. 

Shunning companionship, and collating, combining, 
and nursing his thoughts in rural seclusion, Pollok 
seemed determinedly to have braced up his mind for 
one grand literary enterprise which was to signalise 
his life. Whatever he heard, or read, or savr, or felt, or 
imagined, was worked up into his materials. It occu- 
pied his entire man by day, and coloured his very 
dreams by night. He approached his work on his 
knees by prayer ; he addressed himself to it as an 
exercise of devotion. Nor was the product unworthy. 
" The Course of Time" is a very extraordinary poem — 
vast in its conception — vast in its plan — vast in its 
materials, — and vast, if very far from perfect, in its 
achievement. The wonderful thing is, indeed, that it is 
such as we find it, and not that its imperfections are 
numerous. It has nothing at all savouring of the little 
or conventional about it — for he passed at once from the 
merely elegant and graceful. With Young, Blair, and 
Cowper for his guides, his muse strove with unwearied 



240 ITS EXCELLENCIES AND DEFECTS. 

wing to attain the high, severe, serene region of Milton ; 
and he was at least successful in earnestness of purpose, 
in solemnity of tone, and in vigour and variety of illus- 
tration. 

To briefly characterise " The Course of Time" would 
be no easy matter, as, in a literary point of view, it has 
so many points of conceptional excellence united to so 
many imperfections in mere style and execution ; but 
I hesitate not to aflirm, that the latter are in a great 
measure absorbed, and disappear or dwindle away, in 
the vastness of the general design, and in the copious 
splendour of particular passages. Pollok was of an 
enthusiastic temperament. He combined an energetic 
intellect with a vivid imagination ; and these qualities 
were exhibited alike in the daring plan and the labo- 
rious execution of his great poem ; for unquestionably, 
by the united consent alike of Europe and America, it 
is entitled to that appellation. Had it been otherwise, 
it must have been a complete failure ; for he ambi- 
tiously sought an etherealised region, which "no trite 
medium knows," and where the waxen wings of a 
Dagdalus would have instantly betrayed an unautho- 
rised adventurer. Regarded as a mere poem — as a 
mere literary performance, in which the objects of na- 
ture and art are beautified by the heightening glow of 
imagination — I do not think that it is entitled to rank 
by any means so high as its general acceptance would 
entitle us to look for ; but, on the contrary, that very 
popularity, when we consider the class of its readers 
and their number, is a sufficient evidence of power of 
some kind — probably of a lofty kind. Many of its 
passages, it must be admitted, are more rhetorical than 
inspired. We are oftener dazzled than delighted ; and 
if we at one time wonder at the amazing copiousness of 
Pollok's imagery, we are at another chagrined at the 
indifferent taste manifested in its selection. Nor can 
more be said in uniform defence of its language, style, 



"autumnal eve." 241 

or intonation, although tliese occasionally sound like 
echoes of Milton and Wordsworth — of the former in a 
solemn music, imitative of the peal of the organ, and 
the voices of the choir, reverberating among carved 
cathedral roofs ; of the latter, in strange wild natural 
cadences — now like the mountain breezes wailing dirge- 
ful through the dark ravines of the mountains, or the 
hollow caves on the sea-shore, — and now of the soft 
light airs dallying in April, with the greening tree-tops. 
In the celestial part of his subject — in his allusions to 
the glories of heaven, and the transient vanities of earth, 
the poet is necessarily — I say necessarily — indebted for 
much that has been gleaned unequivocally from the 
sacred record. But he is not less felicitous in the pic- 
tures of weal or woe drawn from his own observation 
of actual life — some of which, as those of a sister's death- 
bed, and of the anxious mother with her children 
around her, are tinted with a touching beauty ; W'hile 
others, as those of the groping miser, and the midnight 
thief, and the satiated voluptuary, are stamped with a 
stern truth, a severe reality, and a harrowing power. 
His descriptive talent, although not always judiciously 
exercised, was of a high grade. Let me instance two 
sketches. The first speaks for itself, and in his softer 
manner : — 

" It was an eve of Autumn's holiest mood ; 
The corn-fields, bathed in Cynthia's silver light, 
Stood ready for the reaper's gathering hand ; 
And all the winds slept soundly. Nature seemed 
In silent contemplation to adore 
Its Maker. Now and then the aged leaf 
Fell from its fellows, rustling to the ground; 
And, as it fell, bade man think on his end. 
On vale and lake, on wood and mountain high, 
With pensive wing outspread, sat heavenly Thought, 
Conversing with itself. Vesper looked forth 
From out her western hermitage, and smiled ; 



242 " MOUNTAIN PROSPECTS." 

And up the east, unclouded, rode the naoon, 
With all her stars, gazing on earth intense, 
As if she saw some wonder working there." 

The last line, bv its suggestiveness, raises the passage 
fii r beyond the scope of mere description. Passing from 
the gentle to the majestic, here is a picture of another 
stamp : — 

" N'or is the hour of lonely walk forgot 
In the wide desert, where the view was large. 
Pleasant were many scenes, but most to me 
The solitude of vast extent, untouched 
By hand of art, where Nature sowed, herself. 
And reaped her crops ; whose garments were the clouds ; 
Whose minstrels brooks ; whose lamps the moon and stars ; 
Whose organ-choir the voice of many waters : 
Whose banquets morning dews ; whose heroes storms ; 
Whose warriors mighty winds ; whose lovers flowers ; 
Whose orators the thunderbolts of God ; 
Whose palaces the everlasting hills ; 
Whose ceiling heaven's unfathomable blue ; 
And from whose rocky turrets, battled high. 
Prospect immense spread out on all sides round, 
Lost now beneath the welkin and the main, 
Now walled with hills that slept above the storms." 

It was finely said, I believe, by my friend Thomas 
Aird, that "'The Course of Time' was the work of a 
man who had kept himself shy from literature, for a 
first and great attempt." Pity that it should have been his 
last ; for, unquestionably, it is the production of a great 
and original genius — a genius which, whatever were its 
youthful deficiencies of taste and judgment, has made 
itself felt wherever the English language is spoken. 

Poor Pollok gave his manuscript to the press from a 
dying hand. That manuscript, as I have said, I had at 
the time the melancholy pleasure of perusing, and re- 
member well that several of the books had been copied 
over for him by a female hand, on account of his 



THOMAS AIRD : 243 

increasing debility — a symptom which he vainly tried, 
even to the last, to conceal from himself. On the 24tli 
March 1827, " The Course of Time" was given to the 
world ; and, on the 18th September of the same year, 
its author was removed from it. But not only had he 
not lived in vain — the great object of his life had been 
accomplished in the publication of his poem ; and it is 
pleasant to know, that the news of the success of " The 
Course of Time " shed a sunshine around his early death- 
bed. He was in his twenty-ninth year. 

The poetry of Thomas Aird deals, still more exclu- 
sively than that of Pollok, with two grand elements — 
the majestic and the severely simple. His genius pants 
after "the vast alone, the wonderful, the wild;" and 
leaves to others the sighing after " harmony and grace 
and gentlest beauty." From their deficiency in the 
genial and the ornate, his writings have thus unfortu- 
nately failed in acquiring that more general accepta- 
bility which their merits otherwise deserve. His mind 
seems too stately and austere to descend to trifling, with 
the winning ease of a Prior or a Moore ; and he cannot 
be said to be himself — to be in his element, except when 
dealing with the majestic in form and idea. The per- 
vading fault of his compositions will be felt to lie in 
the circumstance of his being often less in than above or 
beyond his subject, which he keeps aloof from, and re- 
gards as much with the eye of a painter as of a poet : 
thus, in a great measure, excluding it from that sym- 
pathy which can only be engendered by the complete 
identification of the author's mind with his productions. 
Occasionally his conceptions seem vague, and wrapt in 
a dreamy perplexity, and his language gnarled and in- 
volved ; but we have ever the feeling of strength and 
healthy vigour — never of poverty or meanness. His 
muse shrinks from the commonplace ; and its song is 
never like an unhappy stream whimpering beside the 
polluting chimneys of a manufacturing town ; but 



244 HIS IMAGINATIVE POETRY. 

resembles the fresh forceful cataract dashing in diamonds 
over the mountain rock with its scattered birch-trees, 
and thundering on in its way downwards, although that 
may be only to a bleak and sequestered pastoral glen. 

Aird has seldom ventured on depicturing modes of 
life, or the varying many-hued manners of society — and 
rightly ; for the path of his vigour lies in a different 
direction — in grand outline, not in detail. He is hence 
less fortunate in his " Captive of Fez," his " Christian 
Bride," and his " Frank Sylvan ; " although the first 
has much of the stately march of Dryden's narrative, 
and the last of the quaint graphic homeliness of Cow- 
per, than in his more purely imaginative efforts, " The 
Demoniac," "Nebuchadnezzar," some scenes in the 
"Tragedy of Wold," "The Churchyard Ghosts," and 
" The Devil's Dream ; " the last of which especially, for 
grandeur of conception and the magnificent imagery of 
particular passages, is scarcely surpassed by anything 
that I know of in modern poetry. 

It is thus that the arch-fiend is introduced to us : — 

" Beyond the north, where Ural hills from polar tempests run, 
A glow went forth at midnight hour, as of unwonted sun ; 
Upon the north at midnight hour a mighty noise was heard, 
As if with all his trampling waves the ocean was imbarred ; 
And high a grisly terror hung, upstarting from below, 
Like fiery arrow shot aloft from some unmeasured bow. 

' Twas not the obedient seraph's form that bums before the 

throne. 
Whose feathers are the pointed flames that tremble to be 

gone ; 
With twists of faded glory mixed, grim shadows wove his 

wing ; 
An aspect like the hurrying storm proclaimed the Infernal 

King. 
And up he went, from native might or holy sufferance given, 
As if to strike the starry boss of the high and vaulted heaven. 



I 



"the devil's dream." 245 

Winds rose ; from 'neath his settling feet were driven great 

drifts of snow ; 
Like hoary hair from off his head did white clouds streaming 

go; 
The gulfy pinewoods far beneath roared surging like a sea : 
From out their lairs the striding wolves came howling awfully. 
But now upon an ice-glazed rock, severely blue, he leant, 
His spirit by the storm composed that round about him went." 

While in the heart of his expansive dream on the 
snowy mountains — 

" At last from out the barren womb of many thousand years, 
A sound as of the green-leaved earth his thirsty spirit cheers ; 
And oh ! a presence soft and cool came o'er his burning 

dream, 
A form of beauty clad about with fair creation's beam ; 
A low sweet voice was in his ear, thrilled through his inmost 

soul. 
And these the words that bowed his heart with softly sad 

control : — 

* No sister e'er hath been to thee with pearly eyes of love ; 
No mother e'er hath wept for thee, an outcast from above ; 
No hand hath come from out the cloud, to wash thy scarred 

face; 
No voice to bid thee lie in peace, the noblest of thy race ; 
But bow thee to the God of Love, and all shall yet be well. 
And yet in days of holy rest and gladness thou shalt dwell. 

And thou shalt dwell 'midst leaves and rills far from this torrid 

heat ; 
And I, with streams of cooling milk, will bathe thy blistered 

feet; 
And when the troubled tears shall start to think of all the 

past, 
My mouth shall haste to kiss them off, and chase thy sorrows 

fast; 
And thou shalt walk in soft white light with kings and priests 

abroad, 
And thou shalt summer high in bliss upon the hills of God.' " 



246 AIRD AS A PAINTER OP NATURE. 

And this is the arch-fiend's departure again for his 
infernal realms : — 

" Quick as the levin, whose blue forks lick up the life of man, 
Aloft he sprung, and through his wings the piercing north 

wind ran ; 
Till, like a glimmering lamp that's lit in lazar-house by night, 
To see what mean the sick man's cries, and set his bed aright. 
Which in the dim and sickly air the sputtering shadows mar, 
So gathered darkness high the fiend, till swallowed like a star. 

What judgment from the tempted heavens shall on his head 

go forth 1 
Down headlong through the firmament he fell upon the 

north : 
The stars are up untroubled all in the lofty fields of air: 
The will of God's enough, without his red right arm laid bare. 
'Twas He that gave the fiend a space to prove him still the 

same, 
Then bade wild hell with hideous laugh be stirred her prey to 

claim." 

In his sketches of external nature, Thomas Aird is 
occasionally eminently happy, — as in portions of his 
poems entitled " The Summer," and " The Winter 
Day," which, along with a semi-pastoral character 
peculiarly their own, combine the grand general out- 
lines of Thomson with Crabbe's faithful, minute, and 
microscopic observation. It has often struck me that 
there is a great family likeness between the genius of 
the late David Scott, the painter of Vasco di Gama, 
and that of the author of "The Demoniac" and "The 
Devil's Dream ; " very many of the same characteristic 
defects, which marred popularity ; and very many of 
the same high excellencies, which ought to have com- 
manded it. 

In 1832 appeared the collected poems of William 
Motherwell He had previously made himself known 
by his " Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern," a collection 



WILLIAM MOTHERWELL. 247 

of Scottish ballads industriously collected and ably- 
edited ; and there can be little doubt that the setting 
about such a task gave an increased impetus to his 
own genius in the path of lyric poetry. He was about 
equally successful in two departments, — the martial 
and the plaintive ; yet stirring as are his " Sword 
Chant of Thorstein Raudi," and his " Battle Flag of 
Sigurd," I doubt much whether they are entitled to 
the same praise, or have gained the same deserved 
acceptance, as his " Jeanie Morrison," or his striking 
stanzas, commencing " My head is like to rend." Apart 
from the inimitable genuine antique, it would be diffi- 
cult to point out many ballad pictures of early love, 
more purely and simply pathetic than the former of 
these. Overflowing with nature and pathos, it touches 
a string to which every heart must vibrate, and would 
alone entitle Motherwell to a place not unenviable 
among our poets. He wrote frequently, however, 
when he ought to have been silent, when his muse 
was not in the vein ; and, consequently, on such occa- 
sions we have clever art, not natural feeling ; the form 
of verse without the animating spirit. His besetting 
faults were a straining after sentiment, and an assump- 
tion of morbid pensiveness in his descriptions of nature ; 
but in his happier efforts, where fancy and feeling went 
hand in hand, he captivates our sympathies, and carries 
them along with him. The posthumous additions made 
to the poems of Motherwell, by the kindly zeal of his 
friends Mr M'Gonechy and Mr Kennedy, have, I am 
afraid; like those of Mr Monckton Milnes, in the similar 
case of Keats, added to their bulk rather than their 
value ; and yet, somehow, we should not like to have 
wanted them. The poems of William Kennedy him- 
self are referable to the same period. His principal 
poem " The Arrow and the Rose," may be thought 
deficient in warmth and tenderness ; but it is skilfull)'- 
and elegantly versified, and possesses passages of un- 



248 EBENEZER ELLIOT. 

common power and beauty. Several of his lyrics also 
verge on excellence ; but it must be acknowledged of 
his poetry generally, that ingenious although it be, it 
rather excites expectation than fairly satisfies it. 

The same may be said with regard to a large portion 
of the poetry of Ebenezer Elliot. With much power, 
much graphic strength, it wants amenity ; and he would 
have been allowed but trifling damages on that pleasant 
score by a railway -valuator critic. His landscapes 
abound with wild-roses and brambles, but both have 
prickles ; his cherries resemble sloes, and his apples are 
generally crabs. You have the wallflower and the wood- 
bine, but you have the foxglove and the nightshade 
intertwined with them ; and while you listen to the 
linnet singing gaily from the blooming furze, you have 
somehow a notion that the subtle hawk is somewhere 
in ambush near him. His sky never shows the calm, 
clear, unclouded summer blue ; some speck on the 
horizon, although no " bigger than a man's hand," 
ever predicates storm ; and it is impossible to mistake 
Elliot's moorlands for the Elysian fields. As a depictor 
of the phases of humanity, his portraits are almost all 
of one class ; and with that class are identified his 
entire sympathies. Hence it is that he seems deficient 
in that genial spirit which characterises more catholic 
natures ; in those expansive feelings, which embrace 
society in all its aspects ; in those touches which 
" make all flesh kin." 

Ebenezer Elliot was a man of energetic powers ; but 
it is absurd to mention him, as some have rashly ven- 
tured to do, in the same breath with Burns. They were 
utterly unlike each other in everything, save in one 
principle — intensity. Burns could ascend from " the 
Mouse's Nest" destroyed by the plough, up to the 
march that ushered Bruce to Bannockburn ; from the 
Mountain Daisy gemming the sod, to the last star of 
that annual morn which recalled his thoughts " to Marv 



CHARACTER OF ELLIOT's POETRY, 249 

in Heaven." He had the rough graphic power which 
could etch " The Deil and Dr Hornbook," and " The 
Twa Dogs," and " Tarn O'Shanter ;" but he had also the 
touch which could pencil with fair delicacy the flowers 
fit " to be a posie for his ain dear May." It was other- 
wise with Elliot ; and although his harp could not be 
said to be monotoned, it was much more unequivocally 
characterised b}' its chords of power than of tenderness. 
His history was strange and curious ; and he manfully 
overcame many obstacles in his difficult, onward, and 
upward career, which would have dismayed a less 
ardent spirit in its aspirations after literary excellence. 
In his lest productions, as " The Village Patriarch," 
" The Splendid Village," and "The Ranter," as well as 
in several of his lyrics, he has attained this excellence 
in no ordinary — nay, in an uncommon degree ; many 
of his portraits are redolent of breathing life, and not a 
few of his picturings true to nature. But his taste was 
the element at fault ; and not unfrequently (like James 
Hogg and Allan Cunningham in their most unsuccessful 
moods, and when writing in despite " of gods, men, and 
columns,") Elliot is harsh and involved — nay, conde- 
scends to the very confines of doggrel. Of all the Eng- 
lish poets who have gained a name — and none ever did 
so without in some measure deserving it — there are only 
two w^hom, I fear, I have never been able adequately to 
appreciate — and these are Young and Elliot — although 
to the better parts of both I think I am sufficiently 
alive ; and there is something of unhewn power in each 
not dissimilar. My strictures on Elliot must, there- 
fore, be taken cum grano sails. Probably I have not 
been able to make sufficient allowances for the ever- 
recurring instances of false or indifferent taste conspicu- 
ous in both, and which has destroyed so much of the 
delight which their unquestioned vigour of fancy and 
intellect could not otherwise have failed to produce ; — 
for that Ebenezer Elliot had excellencies of an uncom- 



250 THOMAS HOOD. 

men kind has been proved by the hold which at least 
the better portion of his writings have taken of the 
public mind. 

Thomas Hood was the complete counterpart of El Hot. 
The one from manner — and probably from that alone — 
seemed not able to say even a kind thing graciously ; 
the other could not say what might even be reckoned 
an unkind thing without grace. Quicquid tetigit crnavit. 

With some resemblance to Huut and Keats, Thomas 
Hood had a manner and style racy, original, and pecu- 
liarly his own : but it was long ere he discovered this, 
and he only attained excellence in it in his latter pieces. 
He erroneously thought, through many years, that his 
forte lay between the classical and the imaginative, 
and so wasted his fine powers on " The Plea of the Mid- 
summer Fairies," on " Lycus the Centaur," ^ Hero and 
Leander," and similar efforts, which are vague, diffuse, 
passionless, and ineffective. He was thus like an 
itinerant street performer, who through half his life- 
time has been blowing away his lungs on the Pan's- 
pipes, or cramping his wrist with the liurdy-gurdy, 
suddenly finding, to his own particular amazement, that 
he is fit for the concert-room, on the flageolet or the 
French horn ; and certainly not quite in the position 
of the witty Harry Erskine's Fife Laird, who, when 
asked if he could play the violin, made answer, that 
" he was not very sure, as he had never tried." Hood 
made sure by trying ; and the result was very different 
from what must have been predicated of the Laird's 
first attempt, although it was towards the termination 
of his career when he felt, for the first time, that his 
real strength lay in " the homely tragic," of which he 
soon gave an immortal proof in his " Dream of Eugene 
Aram," which thus delightfully opens — 

" 'Twas in the prime of summer time, 
An evening calm and cool 



hood's serious poems. 251 

And four-and-twenty happy boys 

Came bounding out of school ; 
There were some that ran, and some that leapt 

Like troutlets in a pool. 

Away they sped with gamesome minds, 

And souls untouched by sin ; 
To a level mead they came, and there 

They drave the wickets in ; 
Pleasantly shone the setting sun 

Over the town of Lynn." 

Xor less successful in a similar style, altliough with 
a commixture of wilder and more imaginative elements, 
were " The Haunted House" and " The Elm Tree," in 
both of which the efiects resulted from a succession of 
fine and minute touches. Hood possessed also much of 
tlie genial humour of Addison, Goldsmith, and Charles 
Lamb ; but his main triumph, as I have just said, lav 
in the simple pathetic, — and he has established for him- 
self a name that poetry " may not willingly let die," in 
" The Song of the Shirt," " The Bridge of Sighs," " The 
Workhouse Clock," and several other lyrics of exquisite 
natural beauty and feeling. What heart does not re- 
spond to the touching associations of the following 
voluntary : — 

" I remember, I remember 

The house where I was born. 
The little window where the sun 

Came peeping in at morn : 
He never came a wink too soon, 

Nor brought too long a day, 
But now I often wish the night 

Had borne my breath away ! 

1 remember, I remember 

The roses red and white, 
The violets and the lily-cups, 

Those flowers made of light ! 



252 HIS COMIC VEIN. 

The lilacs where the robin built, 

And where my brother set 
The laburnum on his birth-day, — 

The tree is growing yet ! 

I remember, I remember 

The fir-trees dark and high — 
I used to think their slender tops 

Were close against the sky; 
It was a childish ignorance, 

But now 'tis little joy 
To know I'm farther oflF from heaven 
Then when I was a boy !" 
For a long time Hood seemed content to take his 
place as a mere clever rhyming punster : he then 
showed the " seria mista jocis" and finally came out 
the high and deep-souled poet. In the transition state, 
his volubility in rhyming was even more alarmingly 
wonderful than that of Thomas Ingoldsby or Theodore 
Hook. The flights of Daedalian Icarus, or Ariosto's 
HippogrifF, or Chaucer's steed of brass, or Burger's 
Leonora, or Lunardi's balloon, or Hogg's Witch of Fife, 
or Byron's Mazeppa, or Cowper's John Gilpin, were 
scarcely more perilous than that of Miss Kilmansegg 
through the streets of London, on Banker, " her rich 
bay," as witness this narrative of it : — 

" Away, like the bolt of a rabbit, 
Away went the horse in the madness of fright, 
And away went the horsewoman, mocking the sight — 
Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue light, 

Or only the skirt of her habit ? 

Away she flies, with the groom behind, 
It looks like a race of the Calmuck kind. 

When Hymen himself is the starter : 
And the maid rides first in the four-footed strife, 
Riding, striding, as if for her life. 
While the lover rides after to catch him a wife. 

Although it's catching a Tartar. 



** THE FLIGHT OF MISS KILMANSEGG." 253 

Still flies the heiress through stones and dust, 
Oh ! for a fall, if fall she must, 

On the gentle lap of Flora ! 
But still, thank heaven, she clings to her seat, 
Away ! away ! she could ride a dead heat 
With the dead who ride so fast and fleet 

In the ballad of Leonora ! 

Away she gallops ! It's awful woi-k, 
It's faster than Turpin's ride to York 

On Bess, that notable clipper ! 
She has circled the ring ! she crosses the park ! 
Mazeppa, although he was stripped so stark, 

Mazeppa couldn't outstrip her ! 

The fields seem running away with the folks ! 
The elms are having a race for the Oaks, 

At a pace that all jockeys disparages ! 
All, all is racing ! The Serpentine 
Seems running past like ' the arrowy Rhine,' 
The houses have got on a railway line. 

And are off with the first-class carriages ! 

She'll lose her life ! She's losing her breath ! 
A cruel chase — she is chasing death, 

As female shriekings forewarn her ; 
And now — as gratis as blood of Guelph — 
She clears the gate, which has cleared itself 

Since then, at Hyde Park Corner ! 

Alas ! for the hope of the Kilmanseggs ! 
For her head, her brains, her body and legs. 

Her life's not worth a copper ! 
Willy-nilly — in Piccadilly 
A hundred hearts turn sick and chilly; 

A hundred voices cry, * Stop her ! ' 
And one old gentleman stares and stands. 
Shakes his head, and lifts his hands, 

And says, ' How very improper !' 



254 " THE FLIGHT OF MISS KILMANSEGG." 

On and on ! — what a perilous ran ! 
The iron rails seem all mingling in one, 

To shut out the Green Park scenery ; 
And now the Cellar its dangers reveals — 
She shudders — she shrieks — she's doomed, she feels, 
To be torn by powers of horses and wheels, 

Like a spinner by steam machinery ! 

Sick with horror, she shuts her eyes — 
The very stones seem uttering cries. 



* Batter her ! shatter her ! 

Throw and scatter her ! ' 
Shouts each stony-hearted chatterer. 

' Dash at the heavy Dover ! 
Spill her ! kill her ! tear and tatter her ! 
Smash her ! crash her ! (the stones didn't flatter her !) 
Kick her brains out ! let her blood spatter her ! 

Roll on her over and over ! ' 
For so she gathered her awful sense 
Of the street in its past unmacadamised tense 

As the wild horse overran it — 
His four heels making the clatter of six, 
Like a devil's tatoo played with iron sticks 

On a kettle-drum of granite. 

On ! still on ! she's dazzled with hints 
Of oranges, ribbons, and coloured prints, 
A kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints. 

And human faces all flashing, 
Bright and bi'ief as the sparks from the flints, 

That the desperate hoofs keep dashing ! 

On and on ! still frightfully fast ! 
Dover Street, Bond Street, all are past ! 
But yes— no— yes ! they are down at last! 

The Furies and Fates have found them ! 
Down they go with a sparkle and crash, 
Like a bark that's struck by a lightning flash — 
There's a shriek and a sob — and the dense, dark mob 

Like a billow closes around them ! " 



hood's miscellanies. 255 

Hood's verse, whether serious or comic — whether 
serene like a cloudless autumn evening, or sparkling 
with puns like a frosty January midnight with stars — 
was ever pregnant with materials for thought. In his 
" Elm Tree" we have a piece of secluded forest scenery, 
touched with a strange and gloomy power — creating 
that state of mind in Scotland termed eeriness, and for 
which I am ignorant of any English synonyrae. This 
poem has the same reference to Tennyson's " Talking 
Oak" that a Rembrandt picture, with its deep masses 
and dark shadows, has to a sunbright Hobbima. Its 
power, as well as that in " The Haunted House," is 
effected, as I have said, not by a few bold master-strokes, 
but by a succession of minute cumulative touches, 
which make seclusion deepen into awe, and awe to 
darken into the mysterious gloom of earthquake and 
eclipse and the shadow of death. " The Song of the 
Shirt" and " The Workhouse Clock" are only strains 
preclusive to " The Bridge of Sighs." Throughout these 
and other lyrics, we have utterances alike deep and high 
of Hood's genius — a genius resembling that of Charles 
Lamb, in being at once pleasant and peculiar. 

His comic vein was equally remarkable, and was 
almost the only one that he worked through a succes- 
sion of years. It is only necessary to mention the 
" Irish Schoolmaster," " The Last Man," the "Ode on a 
distant view of Clapham Academy," " Faithless Sally 
Brown," and " Miss Kilmansegg with her Golden Leg," 
to awaken pleasant remembrances in many a mind. 
Yet, like every author distinguished for true comic 
humour, there was a deep vein of melancholy pathos 
running through his mirth ; and even when his sun 
shone brightly, its light seemed often reflected as if only 
over the rim of a cloud. Well may we say in the words 
of Tennyson, " Would he could have stayed with us ! " 
for never could it be more truly recorded of any one — 
in the words of Hamlet characterisins: Yorick — that 



256 "sally brown." 

" he was a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent 
fancy." 

I cannot part from Thomas Hood without exhibiting 
him in one of his most characteristic ballads, wherein 
we have puns " as plenty as blackberries," — " linen on 
every hedge." 

" Young Ben lie was a nice young man, 
A carpenter by trade ; 
And he fell in love with Sally Brown, 
Who was a lady's maid. 

But as they fetched a walk one day, 

They met a press-gang crew ; 
And Sally she did faint away, 

Whilst Ben he was brought to. 

The boatswain swore with wicked words. 

Enough to shock a saint. 
That, though she did seem in a fit, 
'Twas nothing but a feint. 

* Come, girl,' said he, * hold up your head, 

He'll be as good as me ; 
For when your swain is in our boat, 
A boatswain he will be.' 

So when they'd made their game of her. 

And taken oS" her elf, 
She roused, and found she only was 

A-coming to herself. 

' And is he gone, and is he gone?' 
She cried, and wept outright : 

* Then I will to the water-side, 

And see him out of sight.' 

A waterman came up to her, 

' Now, young woman,' said he, 
' If you weep on so, you will make 
Eye-water in the sea.' 



" SALLY BROWN." 257 

' Alas ! they've taken my beau Ben, 

To sail with old Ben-bow ;' 
And her woe begun to run afresh, 

As if she had said ' Gee woe ! ' 

Says he, ' They've only taken him 

To the tender-ship you see ; ' 
' The tender-ship ! ' cried Sally Brown 

* What a hard-ship that must be 

Oh ! would I were a mermaid now, 

For then I'd follow him ; 
But oh ! I'm not a fish- woman. 

And so I cannot swim. 

Alas ! I was not born beneath 

The Virgin and the Scales, 
So I must curse my cruel stars 

And walk about in Wales.' 

Now Ben had sailed to many a place 

That's underneath the world ; 
But in two years the ship came home 

And all her sails were furled. 

But when he called on Sally Brown, 

To see how she got on, 
He found she'd got another Ben, 

Whose Christian name was John. 

* Oh Sally Brown, oh Sally Brown, 

How could you serve me so ! 
I've met with many a breeze before. 

But never such a blow ! ' 

Then, reading on his 'bacco-box, 

He heaved a heavy sigh. 
And then began to eye his pipe, 

And then to pipe his eye. 
R 



258 "sally brow^'." 

And then he tried to sing * All's Well,* 
But could not, though he tried ; 

His head was turned, and so he chewed 
His pigtail till he died. 

His death, which happened in his birth. 

At forty odd befell : 
They went and told the Sexton, and 

The Sexton tolled the bell ! " 

rare Tom Hood ! 



LECTUEE YL 



PART FIEST. 

Female constellation. — Joanna Baillie, IMetrical Legends. — Love of Fame. — 
Felicia Hemans. — Historic Scenes, Forest Sanctuary, Records ofWoman, 
and Miscellanies.— Character of her poetry.— Specimens, Dirge, The 
Trumpet, and Vaudois Hymn.— Caxo\me Bowles, The "Widow's Tale, 
Solitary Hours, The Birthday, Robin Hood.— Analysis of The Young 
Grey Head, with extracts. — Mary Russell Mitford, Maria Jewsbury, 
Letitia Elizabeth Landon ; Improvisatrice, Venetian Bracelet, Golden 
Violet, Remains.— Mary Hewitt, the excellence of her ballad poetry: 
The Spider and the Flt/.—CnToline Norton : The Dream, Child of the 
Islands, and Songs.— Lady Flora Hastings, Harriet Drury, and Camilla 
Toulmin. — Elizabeth Barrett Browning, her genius and its imperfect 
development: Drama of Exile, Cry of the Children.— Professor R, C, 
Trench.— Elegiac Poems, Justin Marytr, Poems from Eastern Sources, 
The Suppliant. — Thomas Pringle, John Clare, Bernard Barton, Thomas 
Haynes Bayley, Alaric A. "Watts. — Specimen, Child blowing Bubbles. — 
T. K. Hervey.— Rev. Charles AVolfe.— r/te Squire's Pew, by Jane Taylor. 
— Various other poets of the period. 

In the same year that Wordsworth and Coleridge 
brought out the Lyrical Ballads — the first offerings of a 
new code of poetry, in contradistinction to that of Hay- 
ley, Darwin, and the Delia Cruscans, Joanna Baillie 
gave the first volume of her "Plays on the Passions," 
to a Drama monopolised by the tame conventionalities 
of Cumberland and Murphy. A^or were their theories 
widely different ; for, in the Preliminary Dicourse by 
"which she ushered in that w^ork, "we find her empha- 
tically maintaining, that " one simple trait of the 
human heart, one expression of passion, genuine and 



260 JOANNA BAILLIE. 

true to nature, will stand forth alone in the boldness of 
reality, while the false and unnatural around it fades 
away on every side, like the rising exhalations of the 
raorninjo:." Her dramas, both tragic and comic, were 
forcible illustrations of this code ; and it must be 
admitted, from published proof, that she thus fore- 
stalled, or at least divided, the claim to originality 
indoctrinated in the theory and practice of Words- 
worth, as shown by his "Lyric Ballads" and their 
preface. 

But Joanna Baillie, as the author of " Count Basil" 
and "De Montfort," is entitled to a much higher place 
among dramatists, than the author of " Metrical 
Legends" is among mere poets. With much imagina- 
tive energy, much observant thought, and great freedom 
and force of delineation, together with a fine feeling of 
nature, and an occasional Massingerian softness of dic- 
tion, it may be claimed for Joanna Baillie that she 
uniformly keeps apart from the trite and commonplace; 
yet we cannot help feeling a deficiency of art, and tact, 
and taste, alike in the management of her themes and 
the structure of her verse. Her tales, as tales, often 
want keeping, and their materials are put together by 
a hand apparently unpractised. Nor even in her 
emotional bursts, where she ought to have certainly 
succeeded, is she always quite happy, as a dash of the 
falsetto is, occasionally at least, not unapparent. 

Of these " Metrical Legends," three in number — " Sir 
William Wallace," " Columbus" and "Lady Griseld 
Baillie," — the last ranks highest in poetical merit ; 
although all are more or less liable to the objections 
just stated. In that dedicated to Columbus, the follow- 
ing spirited lines occur : — 

" ! who shall hghtly say, that Fame 
Is nothing but an empty name ! 
Whilst in that sound there is a charm 
Tlie nerves to brace, the heart to warm, 



( 



BALLADS AND SONGS. 261 

As, thinking of the mighty dead. 

The young from slothful couch will start, 
And vow, with lifted hands outspread, 

Like them to act a noble part ? 
O ! who shall lightly say tliat Fame 
Is nothing but an empty name ! 
When, but for those, our mighty dead, 

All ages past a blank would be, 
Sunk in oblivion's murky bed, 

A desert bare, a shipless sea ? 
They are the distant objects seen, — 
The lofty mai^ks of what hath been. 
! who shall lightly say that Fame 
Is nothing but an empty name ! 
When records of the mighty dead 

To earth- worn pilgrim's wistful eye 
The brightest rays of cheering shed, 

That point to immortality ?" 

Joanna Baillie is happier in her mere ballads, espe- 
cially in that entitled " The Ghost of Fadon ; " and 
several of her songs in the collection of George Thomson 
— alas ! gone from among us since my last Lecture — as, 
" The Trysting Tree," and " Welcome Bat and Owlet 
Grey," as well as in those scattered throughout her 
dramas, are characterised by simplicity of feeling and 
freshness of nature. The most generally appreciated 
among her miscellaneous pieces has been that named 
" The Kitten," which, under a riant playfulness of tone, 
conveys many a sober moral, and may even bear com- 
parison with Wordsworth's well-known verses on the 
same subject. It cannot be said, however, that Joanna 
Baillie's poetry has been so framed as to catch the public 
ear ; for, like Coleridge, Savage Landor, and Aird, she 
has been much more admired than read. 

Otherwise has been the fate of Felicia Hemans, by far 
the most popular of our poetesses, alike at home and 
beyond the Atlantic : nor do I say undeservedly. She 
may indeed be said "to have lisped in numbers," as she 



262 FELICIA HEMANS : 

rhymed almost as soon as she read, and her first collec- 
tion of verses appeared when she was in her fifteenth 
year. These, as might have been expected, were only 
wonderful when the author's age was considered ; and 
her real career may be set down as having commenced 
in 1817, in her poems, "The Restoration of the Works 
of Art to Italy," and "Modern Greece." From that 
time, until her lamented death in 1835, she continued 
to write with untiring zeal and industry, exhibiting a 
variety and richness of genius which, in my opinion, 
fairly entitled her to the female laureate-crown. In 
rapid succession appeared her " Translations from the 
Spanish and Italian poets," the " Tales and Historic 
Scenes," "The Sceptic," "Dartmoor," "The Forest Sanc- 
tuary," "The Records of Woman" (the culminating 
point of her genius), the " Songs of the Affections," the 
"Lyrics and Songs for Music," and the "Hymns and 
Scenes of Life," together with an amazing number of 
detached pieces in almost every possible variety of style 
and measure, all far above commonplace in conception 
and execution, and not a few of matchless and unfading 
splendour. 

To Joanna Baillie, Mrs Hemans might be inferior, 
not only in vigour of conception, but in the power of 
metaphysically analysing those sentiments and emotions 
which constitute the groundwork of human action, — to 
Mrs Jameson, in the critical perception which, from 
detatched fragments of spoken thought, can discriminate 
the links which bind all into one distinctive character, 
— to Letitia Landon, in eloquent facility, — to Caroline 
Bowles, in simple pathos, — to Mary Howitt, in fresh 
nature, — and to Mary Mitford, in graphic strength ; — 
but as a female writer, influencing not only the female 
but the general mind, she is undoubtedly entitled to 
rank above all these her cotemporaries, in whatever 
relation she may be supposed by some to stand to her 
successor, Mrs Browning ; and this pre-eminence has 



I 



HER VARIED EXCELLENCIES. 263 

been acknowledged, not only in our own laud, but 
wherever the English tongue is spoken, whether on the 
banks of the Eastern Ganges or the Western Mississippi. 
Her path was emphatically her own, as truly as that of 
Wordsworth, Scott, Crabbe, or Byron ; and shoals of 
imitators have arisen alike at home and on the other 
side of the Atlantic, who, destitute of her animating 
genius, have mimicked her themes and parodied her 
sentiments and language, without being able to keep 
even within compare of her excellencies. In her 
poetry, religious truth, moral purity, and intellectual 
beauty ever meet together ; and assuredly it is not less 
calculated to refine the taste and exalt the imagina- 
tion, because it addresses itself almost exclusively to the 
better feelings of our nature. Over all her pictures of 
humanity are spread the glory and the grace reflected 
from virtuous purity, delicacy of perception and concep- 
tion, sublimity of religious faith, home-bred delights, 
and the generous expansive ardour of patriotism ; while, 
turning from the dark and degraded, whether in subject 
or sentiment, she seeks out those verdant oases in the 
desert of human life, on which the affections may most 
pleasantly rest. Her poetry is intensely and entirely 
feminine ; and, in my estimation, this is the highest 
praise which, in one point of view, could be awarded 
it. It could have been written by a woman only : for 
although, in the " Records " of her sex, we have the 
female character delineated in all the varied phases of 
baffled passion and of ill-requited affection, of heroical 
self-denial and of withering hope deferred, of devoted- 
ness tried in the furnace of affliction, and of 

" Gentle feelings long subdued, 
Subdued and cherished long " — 

yet its energy resembles that of the dove, " pecking the 
hand that hovers o'er its mate ;" and its exaltation of 
thought is not of that daring kind which doubts and 



264 MBS HEMANS' EARLIER 

derides, or even questions — for a female sceptic is a 
monstrous and repulsive excrescence on human nature 
— but which clings to the anchor of hope, and looks 
forward to a higher immortal destiny with faith and 
reverential fear. 

Mrs Hemans wrote much and fluently ; and, as with 
all authors in like predicament, her strains were of 
various degrees of excellence. Independently of this, 
her different works will be differently estimated as to 
their relative value by different minds ; but among the 
lyrics of the English language which can scarcely die, I 
hesitate not to assign places to " The Hebrew Mother," 
"The Treasures of the Deep," "The Spirit's Return," 
"The Homes of England," "The Better Land," "The 
Hour of Death," " The Trumpet," " The Dirge of a 
Highland Chief," " The Song of a Captive Knight," and 
"The Graves of a Household." In these "gems of 
purest ray serene," the peculiar genius of Mrs Hemans 
breathes and burns and shines pre-eminent ; for her 
forte lay in depicting whatever tends to beautify 
and embellish domestic life, by purifying the passions 
and by sanctifying the affections, making man an 
undying, unquenchable spirit, and earth, his abode, 
a holy place — the gentle overflowings of love and 
friendship-^" home-bred delights and heartfelt happi- 
ness," — the glowing associations of local attachment 
— and the influence of religious feelings over the 
soul, whether arising from the varied circumstances 
and situations of life, or from the aspects of external 
nature. 

The writings of Mrs Hemans seem to divide them- 
selves into two pretty distinct portions ; the first com- 
prehending her " Modern Greece," " Wallace," " Dart- 
moor," "The Sceptic," "Historic Scenes," and other 
productions, up to the publication of "The Forest Sanc- 
tuary ; " and the latter comprehending that fine poem, 
the " Records of Woman," the " Songs of the Affec- 



( 



AND LATER STYLES. 265 

tions," the " Scenes and Hymns of Life," and all her 
subsequent productions. In her earlier works she 
follows the classic model, as contradistinguished from 
the romantic ; and they are inferior in that polish of 
style, that exquisite delicacy of thought, and that 
almost gorgeous richness of language which characterise 
lier maturer compositions. Combined with increased 
self-reliance and an art improved by practice, it is evi- 
dent that new stores of thought were latterly opened 
up \o Mrs Hemans, in a more extended acquaintance 
with the literature of Spain and Germany, as well as 
by a profounder study of what was truly excellent in 
the writings of our greatest poetical regenerator, Words- 
worth. 

In illustration of what I have just said, I give short 
specimens of her early, her transition, and her latest 
manner ; although, from amid so much general beauty, 
it is somewhat difficult to make selection : — 



THE DIRGE OF FERGUS MACIVOR. 

" Son of the mighty and the free ! 

Loved leadei" of the faithful brave ! 
Was it for high-souled chief like thee 

To fill a nameless grave 1 
Oh ! if amidst the valiant slain 

The warrior's bier had been thy lot, 
E'en though on red Culloden's plain, 

We then had moui-ned thee not. 

But darkly closed thy dawn of fame, 

That dawn whose sunbeam rose so fair 
Vengeance alone may breathe thy name, 

The watchword of Despair ! 
Yet oh ! if gallant spirit's power 

Hath e'er ennobled death like thine. 
Then glory marked thy parting hour, 

Last of a mighty line ! 



266 "the trumpet." 

O'er thy own towers the sunshine falls, 

But cannot chase their silent gloom ; 
Those beams that gild thy native walls 

Are sleeping on thy tomb ! 
Spring on thy mountains laughs the while. 

Thy gi-een woods wave in vernal air, 
But the loved scenes may vainly smile — 

Not e'en thy dust is there. 

On thy blue hills no bu§^e-sound 

Is mingling with the torrent's roar ; 
Unmarked, the wild-deer sport around — 

Thou lead'st the chase no more ! 
Thy gates are closed, thy halls are still — 

Those halls where pealed the choral strain- 
They hear the wind's deep murmuring thrill, 

And all is hushed agrain. 



( 

I 



No banner from the lonely tower ' 

Shall wave its blazoned folds on high ; ' 

There the tall grass and summer flower 

Unmarked shall spring and die. 
No more thy bard for other ear ' 

Shall wake the harp once loved by thine — 
Hushed be the strain thou canst not hear, ) 

Last of a mighty line ! " « 

These verses I reckon not unworthy even of the | 
immortal pen that, in the pages of "AVaverley," re- | 
counted the adventures of the semi-fictitious hero they 
commemorate. They are exquisitely beautiful, and 
may be taken as representing Mrs Hemans' best early 
manner — as they were written in 1815. The following 
little poem, which, at its conclusion, almost touches the 
sublime, shows the characteristics of her style ere 
finally and maturely formed : — 

" The trumpet's voice hath roused the land — 
Light up the beacon pyre ! 
A hundred hills have seen the brand, 
And waved the sign of fire. 



"VAUDOIS HYMN." 267 

A hundred banners to the breeze 

Their gorgeous folds have cast — 
And, hark ! was that the sound of seas ? 

A king to war went past. 

The chief is arming in his hall, 

The peasant by his hearth ; 
The mourner hears the thrilling call, 

And rises from the earth. 
The mother on her first-born son 

Looks with a boding eye — 
They come not back, though all be won, 

Whose young hearts leap so high. 

The bard hath ceased his song, and bound 

The falchion to his side ; 
E'en, for the marriage- altar crowned. 

The lover quits his bride. 
And all this change, and haste, and fear, 

By earthly clarion spread ! — 
How will it be when kingdoms hear 

The blast that wakes the dead?" 

Of their author's last best manner, the finest examples 
are perhaps " The Hebrew Mother," " The Palm Tree," 
" The Hour of Romance," " The Treasures of the Deep," 
and "Despondency and Aspiration." The following 
stanzas from the " Hymn of the Vaudois Mountaineers" 
may, however, serve our purpose : — 

" For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 

Our God, our fathers' God ! 
Thou hast made thy children mighty. 

By the touch of the mountain-sod. 
Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge 

Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod ; 
For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 

Our God, our fathers' God ! 



268 CAROLINE BOWLES : 

We are watchers of a beacon 

Whose light must never die ; 
We are guardians of an altar 

Midst the silence of the sky : 
The rocks yield founts of courage, 

Struck forth as by thy rod ; 
For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 

Our God, our fathers' God ! 

For the dark, resounding caverns, 

Where thy still small voice is heard ; 
For the strong pines of the forests, 

That by thy breath are stirred ; 
For the storms, on whose free pinions 

Thy spirit walks abroad ; 
For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 

Our God, our fathers' God ! 

The royal eagle darteth 

On his quarry from the height. 
And the stag that knows no master, 

Seeks thei'e his wild delights ; ^ 

But we, for thy communion, 

Have sought the mountain-sod ; 
For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 

Our God, our fathers' God ! " 

Three years after the "Modern Greece" of Mrs 
Hemans, appeared the " Ellen Fitzarthur " of Caroline 
Bowles, afterwards Mrs Southey. To much of the 
fresh simple nature — the " To-morrow to fresh Fields 
and Pastures new," of Joanna Baillie, she united not a 
little of the observant truth and searching pathos of 
Crabbe, with a delicacy of tact and feeling peculiarly 
her own. The dawnings of her genius appeared in the 
production just mentioned, as well as in its successor. 
" The Widow's Tale ; " but it is in the " Solitary Hours," 
the " Tales of the Factories," " The Birthday," and her 
contributions to the volume entitled "Robin Hood" — 



HER PROFOUND PATHOS. 269 

a conjunct of her own and the Laureate's — that we 
recognise the triumphs of her raaturer genius. We 
therein find all the varied impulses of a gentle nature, 
all the finer feelings of a woman's heart. No man 
could have written such poetry — at least no man has 
ever yet done so: it breathes of "a purer ether, a 
diviner air" than that respired by the soi-disant lords 
of the creation ; and in its freedom from all moral 
blemish and blot — from all harshness and austerity of 
sentiment — from all the polluting taints which are apt 
to cleave to human thought, and its expansive sympathy 
with all that is holy, just, and of good report — it 
elevates the heart even more than it delights the fancy. 
We doubt if the English language possesses anything 
more profoundly pathetic than Mrs Southey's four 
tales, "The Young Grey Head," "The Murder Glen," 
"Walter and William," and "The Evening Walk;" 
and I envy not the heart-construction of that family 
group, of which the father could read these compositions 
aloud to his children either himself with an unfaltering 
voice, or without exciting their tears. Several of her 
ballads, as "The Lady's Brydalle," "The Broken 
Bridge," and "The Greenwood Shrift," are all so admi- 
rable, full of softness and sweetness and simple nature, 
like landscapes by Mori and or Gainsborough or Linnel ; 
while her lyrics in a higher and more sentimental 
strain, as "The Pauper's Deathbed," "'Tis hard to die 
in Spring," " The Mariner's Hymn," "There is a tongue 
in every Leaf," "Sabbath Evening," and "To a Dying 
Infant,'* are bright with the reflected graces of a harmo- 
nising fancy and a reflecting spirit. The heart of no 
Englishwoman was ever more certainly in its right 
place than that of Caroline Bowles. 

I cannot resist giving an analysis and specimens of 
one of the tales alluded to, and select that entitled "The 
Young Grey Head." 

It opens with a cottager warning his wife to keep 



270 "the young grey head," 

the children from school that morning, from the signs 
of impending storm — 

*' I'm thinking that to-night, if not before, 
There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton roar ] 
It's brewing up, down westward ; and look there ! 
One of those sea-gulls ! — ay, there goes a pair ; 
And such a sudden thaw ! If rain comes on. 
As threats, the waters will be out anon. 
That path by the ford's a nasty bit of way — 
Best let the young ones bide from school to-day. " 

Tlie children themselves join in this request ; but the 
mother resolves that they should set out — the two girls, 
Lizzy and Jenny, the one five and the other seven. As 
the dame's will was law, so, 

" One last fond kiss — 
'God bless my little maids,' the father said ; 
And cheerily went his way to win their bread. " 

Prepared for their journey, they depart, with the 
mother's admonitions to the elder, — 

" ' Now, mind and bring 
Jenny safe home, ' the mother said. * Don't stay 
To pull a bough or berry by the way ; 
And when you come to cross the ford, hold fast 
Your little sister's hand till you're quite past — 
That plank's so crazy, and so slippery, 
If not o'erflowed, the stepping-stones will be. 
But you're good children — steady as old folk, 
I'd trust ye anywhere. ' Then Lizzy's cloak 
(A good grey duffle) lovingly she tied, 
And amply little Jenny's lack supplied 
With her own warmest shawL * Be sure,' said she, 
* To wrap it round, and knot it carefully 
(Like this) when you come home— just leaving free 
One hand to hold by. Now make haste away — 
Good will to school, and then good right to play.'" 



WITH EXTRACTS. 271 

The mother watched them as they went down the 
lane, o'erburdened with something like a foreboding of 
evil which she strove to overcome ; but could not during 
the day quite bear up against her own thoughts, more 
especially as the threatened storm did at length truly 
set in. His labour done, the husband makes his three 
miles' way homeward, until his cottage coming into 
view, all its pleasant associations of spring, summer, 
and autumn, with its thousand family delights, rush 
on his heart : — 

'•' There was a treasure hidden in his hat — 
A plaything for his young ones. He had found 
A dormouse nest ; the living ball coiled round 
For its long winter sleep ; and all his thought, 
As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of nought 
But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes, 
And graver Lizzy's quieter surprise, 
When he should yield, by guess and kiss and prayer, 
Hard won, the frozen captive to their care.'' 

Out rushes his fondling dog Tinker, but no little faces 
greet him as wont at the threshold ; and to his hurried 
question, "Are they come ? — 'twas no." 

" To throw his tools down, hastily unhook 
The old cracked lantern from its dusty nook, 
And, while he lit it, speak a cheering word 
That almost choked him, and was scarely heard, 
Was but a moment's act, and be was gone 
To where a fearful foresight led him on. " 

A neighbour accompanies him ; and they strike into 
the track which the children should have taken in their 
way back — now calling aloud on them through the 
pitchy darkness — and now by the lantern-light scruti- 
nising "thicket, bole, and nook," till the dog, brushing 
past them with a bark, shows them that he was on 
their track : — 



272 "the young grey head." 

" ' Hold the light 
Low down — he's making for the water. Hai'k ! 
I know that whine — the old dog's found them, Mark, ' 
So speaking, breathlessly he hurried on 
Toward the old crazy foot-bridge. It was gone ! 
And all his dull contracted light could show 
Was the black, void, and dark swollen stream below. 
' Yet there's life somewhere — more than Tinker's whine - 
That's sure,' said Mark. ' So, let the lantern shine 
Down yonder. There's the dog — and hark ! ' 

' Oh dear ! ' 
And a low sob came faintly on the ear, 
Mocked by the sobbing gust. Down, quick as thought, 
Into the stream leaped Ambrose, where he caught 
Fast hold of something — a dark huddled heap — 
Half in the water, where 'twas scarce knee-deep 
For a tall man ; and half above it propped 
By some old ragged side-piles that had stopt 
Endways the broken plank when it gave way 
With the two little ones that luckless day ! 
' My babes ! my lambkins ! ' was the father's cry — 
One little xoice made answer, •' Here am I ! ' — 
'Twas Lizzy's. There she crouched, with face as white, 
More ghastly, by the flickering lantern-light, 
Than sheeted corpse. The pale blue lips drawn tight. 
Wide parted, showing all the pearly teeth, 
And eyes on some dark object underneath, 
Washed by the turbid water, fixed like stone — 
One arm and hand stretched out, and rigid grown, 
Grasping, as in the death-gripe, Jenny's frock. 
There she lay drowned. 

They lifted her from out her watery bed — 
Its covering gone, the lovely little head 
Hung, like a broken snow- drop, all aside, 
And one small hand. The mother's shawl was tied, 
Leaving that free about the child's small form. 
As was her last injunction — ' fast and warm ' — 
Too well obeyed — too fast ! A fatal hold, 
Affording to the scrag, by a thick fold 
That caught and pinned her to the river's bed : 



EXTRACTS CONCLUDED. 273 

While through the reckless water over-head, 
Her life-breath bubbled up." 

I pass over the cruel self-iipbraidings of the mother ; 
for — 

" * She might have lived, 
Struggling like Lizzy,' was the thought that rived 
The wretched mother's heart, when she knew all, 
' But for my foolishness about that shawl '" — 

a torture aggravated by the tones of the surviving cliild, 
who, half deliriously, kept on ejaculating — 

" ' Who says I forgot ? 
Mother ! indeed, indeed I kept fast hold, 
And tied the shawl quite close — she can't be cold — 
But she won't move — we slept — I don't know how — 
But I held on — and I'm so weary now — 
And it's so dark and cold ! — oh dear ! oh dear ! — 
And she won't move — if daddy was but here ! ' " 

From their despair for the lost, the poor parents turned 
to their almost forlorn hope in the living, as — 

" All night long from side to side she turned, 
Piteously plaining like a wounded dove, 
With now and then the murmur, ' She won't move.' 
And lo ! when morning, as in mockery, bright 
Shone on that pillow — passing strange the sight — 
The young head's raven hair was streaked with white ! " 

About poetry like this, fresh from the fountain of the 
heart, " with beaded bubbles yet winking on the brim," 
there can be no mistake. It is beyond critic's cavils, 
for it tells ; and I would rather be the author of such — 
because it will be as good a hundred years hence as 
now — than of all the statelier philosophic analyses of 
feeling — the present favourite subjects of a mere fashion, 
which, when it fades, must be for ever. 

In this brilliant constellation of female genius, which 
s 



274 LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON. 

gained its culminating point about twenty-five years 
ago, and which numbered, With the names already 
mentioned, those also of Mary Russell Mitford, Maria 
Jewsbury, and Mary Howitt, Letitia Elizabeth Landon 
succeeded in obtaining that popularity which was second 
only to Mrs Hemans. Like her, she was brought out as 
a juvenile prodigy, with much flourish of critical trum- 
pets, and, while yet in her teens, produced " The Impro- 
visatrice," to prove that such encomiums, however 
exorbitant they might seem, were not altogether mis- 
placed ; for it unquestionably exhibited a liveliness of 
fancy, store of poetical ideas, command of language, 
and an ear attuned to the varied cadences of verse. Its 
prime fault was difFuseness — a fault of inexperience, and 
less prominent in her subsequent appearances, " The 
Troubadour," " The Golden Violet," and " The Venetian 
Bracelet," which are all distinguished by greater con- 
centration of thought and style. Her earlier writings 
exhibited a peculiar constitution of genius. She arrayed 
her portraitures in the brilliant costume of Moore, and 
exhibited them against the gloomy background of 
Byron ; always, at the same time, preserving enough of 
individuality to make and keep them distinctively her 
own. Like the former, her earth was too full of roses 
and singing-birds, and love : like the latter, her skies 
were too often the theatre of whirlwind, of lightning, 
thunder-cloud, and storm. She was always in ex- 
tremes — either in the seventh heaven of ecstasy, or in 
the lowest depths of hypochondriacal sadness. She " no 
trite medium knew;" but her walk was her own, 
although she might be said to differ from some of her 
cotemporaries less in distinctive excellencies than in 
distinctive peculiarities. Her deficiency alike in judg- 
ment and taste made her wayward and capricious, and 
her efforts seemed frequently impulsive. Hence she 
gave to the public a great deal too much — a large part 
of her writings being destitute of that elaboration, care, 



I 



MARY RUSSELL MITFOBD. 275 

and finish essentially necessary in the fine arts, even 
Avhen in combination with the highest genius^ to secure 
permanent success ; for the finest poetry is that which 
is suggestive — the result as much of what has been 
studiously withheld as of what has been elaborately 
given. It is quite apparent, however, that L. E. L. had 
opened her eyes to these her defects, and was rapidly 
overcoming them ; for her very last things — those pub- 
lished in her " Remains," by Laraan Blanchard — are 
incomparably her best, whether we regard vigorous 
conception, concentration of idea, or judicious selection 
of subject. Her faults originated in an enthusiastic 
temperament and an efllorescent fancy ; and showed 
themselves, as might have been expected, in an uncurbed 
prodigality of glittering imagery, — her muse, untamed 
and untutored, ever darting in dalliance from one object 
to another, like the talismanic bird in the Arabian story. 
Alas ! that on such a sunny noon should have instan- 
taneously descended an eve so dark and so dismal ! 

" All that we know is — nothing can be known ! " 

Miss Mitford requires only a passing mention here. 
Her first claims on the public were no doubt as a poetess, 
in her early " Sketches," and in her " Christina, the 
Maid of the South Seas" — a six-canto production of the 
Sir Walter Scott school, of considerable merit ; but she 
is chiefly to be remembered as the author of " Our 
Village," so full of truth and raciness and fine English 
life; and for her three tragedies — "Julian," "The 
Vespers of Palermo," and " Rienzi " — the last of which 
was, I believe, eminently successful in representation. 
Her latter verses are all able and elegant ; but she is 
deficient in that nameless adaptation of expression to 
thought accomplished by some indescribable, some inex- 
plicable collocation of the best words in their best places, 
apparently quite necessary for the success of poetical 
phrase. This power, on the contrary, Mary Howitt 



276 MA.RY howitt: 

possesses in perfection, while she is somewhat wanting 
in the essential matter — the more solid materials — 
which Miss Mitford seems to have ever at command. 
The one is mightiest in facts, the other in fancy. 

In Mary Howitt's first conjunct volume with her 
husband — " The Forest Minstrel" — everything had the 
true flavour of the country. The reader was led en- 
tranced through " bosky bournes and bushy dells," the 
air was redolent of fir-cones ; wild roses sprang in every 
wayside hedge ; and you could not peep into a thicket 
without discovering a bird's nest. The features of all 
the hours throughout the varying seasons were marked, 
and no worshipper ever bowed a more faithful knee at 
the shrine of nature. " The Desolation of Eyam," also 
a conjunct volume, followed at no great distance of time, 
and evidenced distinct improvement in both writers, 
alike in style, manner, and precision of imagery. To a 
simplicity of language and feeling almost amounting to 
the pastoral, were united a taste and elegance generally 
supposed to characterise compositions of a more ambi- 
tious aim. In their first publication, the authors seemed 
to pay a divided worship between Keats and Words- 
worth. There was much of the deep sense of beauty 
which enraptured the first, and not a little of that 
humane philosophic spirit by which the other saw excel- 
lencies even in the trivial and apparently mean. But 
they had now come to think for and to express them- 
selves more independently ; and not a few of the ballads 
and lyrics accompanying the leading poem were of 
superior excellence, more especially " The Highland 
Group," " The Mountain Tombs," " Would I had wist,"' 
and, above all, " The Two Voyagers," — a most touching 
theme, exquisitely managed. It was probably her suc- 
cess in it which led Mary Howitt to the fortress of her 
main strength, ballad poetry, in which she has few 
cotemporary rivals, whether we regard her pictures of 
stern wild solitary nature, or of all that is placid, gentle. 



HER DESCRIPTIVE POWERS. 277 

and benignant in the supernatural. I have only to 
instance " The Hunter's Linn," and " A Tale of the 
Woods," as examples of her success in the former walk, 
and " The Fairies of Caldon Low" in the latter. 

I hesitate not to say that I like her better in these 
than in her more ambitious attempt, " The Seven Temp- 
tations," fine as two of the series of stories are — " The 
Poor Scholar," and ^' The Sorrow of Theresa." Indeed 
the more simple, inartificial, and unaspiring that Mary 
Howitt is in her themes, the truer she ever is to herself 
and nature ; and hence her success as a writer for the 
young. Her path there is different from that of the 
authors of the " Hymns for Infant Minds ;" for her 
themes are those of natural observation, and innocent 
mirth, and playful fancy ; and few things better in their 
way have ever been written than the following stanzas, 
which, although expressly meant for children, may be 
pondered over with advantage also " by children of a 
larger growth :" 

" ' Will you walk into my parlour ? ' said the spider to the fly, 
' 'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy ; 
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair. 
And I've got many curious things to show when you are there.' 
' Oh no, no,' said the little fly, ' to ask me is in vain, 
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down 
again.' 

' I'm sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high ; 
Will you rest upon my little bed ? ' said the spider to the fly ; 
' There are pretty curtains drawn around ; the sheets are fine 

and thin, 
And if you like to rest a while, I'll snugly tuck you in ! ' 
' Oh no, no,' said the little fly, ' for I've often heard it said, 
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed ! ' 

Said the cunning spider to the fly — ' Dear friend, what can 

I do 
To prove the warm affection I've always felt for you ? 



278 "the spider and the fly." 

I have within my pantry good store of all that's nice ; 

I'm sure you're very welcome — will you please to take a 

slice V 
' Oh no, no,' said the little fly, ' kind sir, that cannot be, 
I've heard what's in your pantry, and I do not wish to see.' 

' Sweet creature,' said the spider, ' you're witty and you're 

wise ; 
How handsome ai'e your gauzy Wings, how brilliant are your 

eyes ! 
I have a little looking-glass upon my parlour shelf, 
If you'll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself/ 
' I thank you, gentle sir,' she said, ' for what you please to say, 
And bidding you good morning now, I'll call another day.' 

The spider turned him round about, and went into his den. 

For well he knew the silly fly would soon come back again ; 

So he wove a subtle web in a little comer sly. 

And set his table ready to dine upon the fly. 

Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing 

' Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver 

wing ; 
Your robes are green and purple — there's a crest upon your 

head; 
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as 

lead ! ' 

Alas ! alas ! how very soon this silly little fly. 
Hearing his wily flattering words, came slowly flitting by; 
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew, 
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and her green and purple 

hue — 
Thinking only of her crested head — poor foolish thing ! At 

last, 
Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast. 
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den, 
Within his little parlour — but she ne'er came out again ! 

And now, dear little children, who may this story read, 
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed ; 



CAROLINE NORTON. 279 

Unto an evil counsellor close heai't and ear and eye, 

And take a lesson fx'om this tale of the spider and the fly." 

There can be no surer proof of the genuineness of the 
poetical power possessed by Mary Howitt, than the fact 
that her finer pieces ever recur again and again to the 
memories of all imaginative readers. This can be only- 
owing to their feminine tenderness, their earnest tone, 
their gentle music, and their simple but genuine 
nature. Her style is sometimes careless, and her stories 
inartificially put together; but we readily forget 
these and other deficiencies in the truth of her home 
scenes, and the lonely wildness of her moorland land- 
scapes. 

The artless simplicity of Mary Howitt is at direct 
antipodes to the stately elaboration of Mrs Norton : not 
that the author of " The Child of the Islands," and " The 
Dream," is an artificial writer, but that her sketches 
from nature, as well as of life and character, are of a 
kind totally dissimilar. Mary Howitt was constitution- 
ally fanciful and imaginative; and the fault of her early 
])ictures is, that all her plants have too much flower. 
When, on the contrary, we look at " The Sorrows of 
Rosalie," and " The Undying One," and compare these 
with the more matured and subsequent productions of 
Mrs Norton, it will be evident that her poetic powers 
have been greatly ciierished and improved by education 
and culture, and by a careful study of the best models. 
In her tenderer moods she pitches on a key somewhat 
between Goldsmith and Rogers — with here the sunset 
glow of the first, and there the twilight softness of the 
latter : in her more passionate ones we have a reflex of 
Byron ; but it is a reflex of the pathos, without the 
misanthropy of that great poet. Her ear for the modu- 
lation of verse is exquisite ; and many of her lyrics and 
songs carry in them the characteristic of the ancient 
Douglases, being alike " tender and true." It must be 



280 LADY FLORA HASTINGS, ETC. 

owned, hoTv^ever, that individuality is not the most pro- 
minent feature of Mrs Norton's poetry. 

As connected with this section of my subject, it would 
be unjust to pass over without mention the names of 
Lady Flora Hastings, of Harriet Drury, and Camilla 
Toulmin. In Lady Flora's dramatic fragments espe- 
cially, there is a true power, which, had it continued to 
be cultivated, might have produced great things ; and 
many of her original lyrics, as " The Rainbow," " The 
Cross of Constantine," " The Street of the Tombs," as 
Avell as her translations from the German and Italian, 
are replete with spirit and grace. " The Annesley" 
of Harriet Drury gives indication of poetic capabilities 
which require only maturer cultivation to secure her 
that place among the sister poets of England, which is 
assuredly within her reach : and for Camilla Toulmin 
may be claimed the praise of having been among the 
first to endeavour boldly to wed the revelations of 
modern science and art to the harmonies of verse ; nor 
has she done this unsuccessfully in her poems, " The 
Real and Ideal," " Astrology and Alchemy," and ''The 
Railway Whistle." 

What Felicia Hemans was to Sir Walter Scott, Eliza- 
beth Barrett is to Alfred Tennyson. In some degree 
they are reflexes ; yet each has a high, peculiar, and 
speculative genius of their own. In her early writings, 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was as lucid as Mary 
Howitt or Caroline Bowles, although her phraseology 
and style were always careless and disjointed, and her 
ear, alike for rhythm and rhyme, utterly untuned ; but 
in her literary progress, she has, like Thomas Carlyle 
and Emerson, been steadily becoming more and more in- 
verted and involved, till she has bewildered her thoughts 
and her English in palpable obscurity and mysticism. To 
be aware of this we have only to contrast her early 
" Sonnets" with her later ; or her " Grave of Cowper " 
with her " Drama of Exile." 



ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. 281 

The general eflfect of Mrs Hemans' poetry may be com- 
pared to that of a Grecian temple perched on a green 
bill, in the open sunlight, and surrounded by its olive 
groves — a temple symmetric in its general design, and 
just in its particular portions, wherein are met elegance 
and grace and consummate art ; that of Mrs Browning, 
to a Gothic church, mossy and weather-stained, in a 
sequestered dell among gnarled old trees, overshading 
the grey tombstones of its venerable field of graves, with 
its pointed gables, its quaint niches, its grotesque corbels, 
and echoing aisles, its fretted worm-bored oak-work, 
and its faded velvet cushion brocaded with gold. 

There is much of seriousness, nay, sadness, in the 
general tone of Mrs Browning's verse, and it abounds 
with solemn questionings ; but her speculations are for 
the most part, if not quite objectless, mere gropings and 
guessings in the dark. She has considerable inven- 
tiveness, yet without much variety, and almost nothing 
of art. Hence she has never given us, even for once, 
anything that can be regarded as either a finished por- 
trait or picture, although she is always most successful 
when least ambitious — and her " Little Elie," and her 
*' Bertha in the Lane," have something like proportion 
and individuality. She seems to satisfy herself with 
mere hasty sketches ; and even in them we have want 
of outline, haziness, or exaggeration. We have occasion- 
ally the germ of tine things ; but her blossoms, nipped 
by the canker-Avorm, seldom ripen into fruit. She 
seems never to dream of elaboration — her structures are 
mere walls without roofs ; or, if we have these, the 
window-frames are left unglazed ; shrubs grow in the 
front plot, but the wicket gate has been carelessly 
flung open, and the nibbling sheep have managed to 
make sad work with the flowers and evergreens. Her 
acquired knowledge is great ; so is her intellectual capa- 
city : the only faculty imperfectly cultivated is her 
taste ; for her want of ear seems a natural and incur- 



282 MRS BROW>'IXGS GENICS, 

able defect. Hence it is that she is so capricions and 
uncertain, not only in the selection and management of 
lier subjects, but also in her language and style. Her 
mannerisms amount to affectations ; and too often her 
thoughts and images are crude, careless, and only half 
brought out. In her compositions she seems utterly to 
disregard correctness, combination, and elegance. 

Mrs Hemans, above all female writers, was distin- 
guished for her rich tones — the voice at once sweet and 
full — that carried them to the heart, awakening the feel- 
ings as well as the imagination. Mrs Browning speaks 
out in other accents — as of one oppressed with the weight 
of mortality, of some unutterable grief, and who longs 
for " the wings of a dove, to flee away and be at rest." 
Her day knows nothing of summer sunshine rejoicing 
in its flowers and singing-birds ; it is like that of cheer- 
less November with its pallid low-hung sky, its drizzly 
rains, and its yellow leaves eddying in the breeze. Her 
song, half inarticulate, is often nothing more than a 
long wild wail, like the " Oolaloo " at an Irish funeral — 
as in " The Cry of the Children," the most extraordinary 
and strikingly original of all Mrs Browning's produc- 
tions ; or than mere iEolian warblings — as the seraphic 
choruses in the " Drama of Exile." Gifted with a fine 
and peculiar genius, what Mrs Browning might have 
achieved, or may yet achieve, by concentration of 
thought and rejection of unworthy materials, it is im- 
possible to say ; but most assuredly she has hitherto 
marred the effect of much she has written by a careless 
self-satisfaction. Instead of being a comet that " from 
its horrid hair shakes pestilence and war," she might 
have been, and I trust is destined yet to be, a constella- 
tion to twinkle for ever insilver beauty amid the blueser- 
ene. The materials of poetry seem lying heaped in plenty 
around her ; but she either will not exert her power, 
or her skill in putting them together sadly lacks tutoring. 
This defect many will suppose should have been over- 



AKD ITS PECULIAEITIES. 283 

come by practice and experience. Sorry am I to say it 
has not been so. On the contrary, her faults, as I liaTe 
lamented, have been degenerating into system. She has, 
year after year, been becoming more involved in style 
more mystical in conception, and more transcendental 
in speculation. Instead of healthy strength we have 
morbid excitement, and what were originally mere 
peculiarities and mannerisms, appear to have grown 
into settled affectations. 

The " importunate and heavy load " of the truth of 
the following stanzas from " The Cry of the Children" 
weighs on the heart like a nightmare, — on the imagi- 
nation like a torture-scene by Spagnoletto. 

" Do you hear the children weeping, oh my brothers ! 
Ere the sorrow comes with years ? 
They are leaning' their young heads against their mothers', 
And that cannot stop their tears. 

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, ^ 

The young birds are chirping in the nesb, 
The young fawns are playing with the shadoAvs, 

The yoimg flowers are blowing towards the west ; 

But the young, young children, oh my brothers ! 

They are weeping bitterly ! 
They are weeping in the playtime of the others. 

In the country of the free. 

For all day the wheels are droning, turning — 

Their wind comes in our faces, 
Till our hearts turn — our heads with pulses burning— 

And the wails turn in their places. 

Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling — 
Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall — 

Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling — 
All are turning, all the day, and we with all. 



284 RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH. 

And all day the iron wheels are droning, 

And sometimes we could pray, 
* ye wheels, (breaking out in a sad moaning), 

Stop — be silent for to-day ! ' 

Ay, be silent ! Let them hear each other breathing 

For a moment, mouth to mouth ; 
Let them touch each other's hands in a fresh wreathing 

Of their tender human youth ! 

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion 
Is not all the life God fashions and reveals, 

Let them prove their inward soiils against the notion 
That they live in you, or under you, wheels ! 

Now tell the poor yoimg children, oh my brothers ! 

To look up to Him and pray, 
So the Blessed One, who blesseth all the others, 

May bless them another day." 

Richard Chenevix Trench, Professor of Divinity in 
University College, London, has something of Mrs 
Browning's recondite speculation, and love for the un- 
common in thought and expression ; but these vagaries 
with him lie entirely on the surface, and, withal, are 
so slight, even as conceits, that they never interfere 
with his conceptions, for he is always eminently per- 
spicuous. When we gaze into a clear translucent pool, 
and observe distinctly the sand, shells, and pebbles at 
the bottom, we are apt to form a very erroneous esti- 
mate of its depth. It is often so with Mr Trench's 
poetry, where the profound seems to assume the guise 
of the simple and unadorned. That he is something of 
a mannerist is not to be disputed, but seldom disagree- 
ably so, from a classical eagerness, an over-fastidious 
anxiety to give his phrases their highest polish; so, 
from his "Justin Martyr," through his "Elegiac 
Poems," down to those "From Eastern Sources," his 
course towards compositional excellence has been 



i 



*' THE SUPPLIANT." 285 

steady and evident. In the last mentioned volume 
especially, there are several poems of exquisite beauty, 
whose music lingers on the memory, and refuses to be 
forgotten, — as " The Banished Kings," " Orpheus and 
the Syrens," " Moses and Jethro," and " The Sup- 
pliant," — above all the last, than which I scarcely know 
anything finer in its way. 

" All night the lonely suppliant prayed, 
All night his earnest crying made, 
Till, standing by his side, at morn, 
The Tempter said in bitter scorn, 

* Oh, peace ! what profit do you gain 
From empty words and babblings vain ] 

" Come, Lord — oh come ! " you cry alway ; 
You pour your heart out night and day ; 
Yet still no murmur of reply, — 
No voice that answers, " Here am I." ' 

Then sank the stricken heart in dust. 
That word had withered all its trust ; 
No strength retained it now to pray, 
While Faith and Hope had fled away ; 
And ill that mourner now had fared. 
Thus by the Tempter's art ensnared, 
But that at length beside his bed 
His sorrowing angel stood, and said, — 

* Doth it repent thee of thy love. 
That never now is heard above 
Thy prayer, that now not any more 

It knocks at heaven's gate as before 1 ' 

' I am cast out — I find no place. 
No hearing at the throne of grace, 
" Come Loi'd — oh come ! " I cry alway, 
I pour my heart out night and day. 
Yet never, until now, have won 
The answer — " Here am I, my son." ' 

' Oh, dull of heart ! enclosed doth He 
In each, " Come, Lord ! " an " Here am I." 



286 THOMAS PRINGLE. 

Thy love, thy longing are not thine — 

Reflections of a love divine : 

The very prayer to thee was given, 

Itself a messenger from heaven. 

Whom God rejects, they are not so ; 

Strong bands are round them in their woe ; 

Their hearts are bound with bauds of brass 

That sigh or crying cannot pass. 

All treasures did the Lord impart 

To Pharaoh, save a contrite heart : 

All other gifts unto his foes 

He freely gives, nor grudging knows ; 

But love's sweet smart and costly pain 

A treasure to his friends remain.' " 

Of late years, Professor Trench has greatly distin- 
guished himself by his theological treatises, said to be 
among the best and most learned of our age, and to 
have almost forsaken "the flowery paths of poetry." 
But the simultaneous cultivation of the intellect and 
fancy, as he himself well knows, is anything but incom- 
patible; and an occasional saunter in his early favourite 
paths might not only be refreshing to himself, but 
might enable him yet to twine a few more bouquets 
quite worthy of public acceptance. 

Along with the "bright particular stars" which 
illumined our literary hemisphere in the first quarter 
of the present century, there were many detached 
ones — less lustrous, perhaps, and dazzling — but which 
also, in " their golden urns," drew the light of inspir- 
ation. My limits, however, will not allow of more 
than a general and cursory notice of these ; and I must 
even restrict myself to a few of the most prominent, 
from whose pages the student of poetry may more 
certainly anticipate delight. 

Thomas Pringle, the author of the " Autumnal Ex- 
cursion " and the " African Sketches," possessed con- 
siderable scholarship, an elegant taste, and a certain 



JOHN CLARE. 287 

racy vigour, occasionally amounting to power. His 
verses naturally divide themselves into two sections, — 
those relating to the scenery and traditions, the senti- 
ments and associations of his native Scotland ; and 
those composed amid the far-stretching wilds beyond 
the Cape, where the elephant comes down to drink at 
the cane-marshes, and where the fox-chase is exchanged 
for the lion-hunt. For elegance, elevation, and purity 
of style, it would be difficult to point out many things, 
in the octosyllabic measure, superior to the " Autumnal 
Excursion," descriptive of Teviotdale, and of the pastoral 
and pure associations by which it was linked to the 
mind of boyhood ; and several of his songs and sonnets 
breathe alike of the fire and tenderness which hovered 
over the Border districts, from the days of the old 
"Flowers of the Forest" and "Johnny Armstrong," 
down to those of Scott and Leyden ; but his " African 
Sketches" are maturer in thought and general power; 
and, besides, are more striking, both from the novelty 
of the situations depictured, and the imposing grandeur 
of the scenery described. The finest of these are "The 
Bechuana Boy," which unites Doric simplicity with 
classic finish ; and the verses, " Afar in the Desert," 
whose strange wild music is said to have possessed a 
charm of fascination even for the ear and heart of Cole- 
ridge. 

Although not to the same extent as Burns or Bloom- 
field, as Hogg or Cunningham, John Clare has also just 
claims to be regarded as a true poet, — the wild pea being 
a flower in its way, as well as the statelier moss-rose. 
His pretensions, however, are of the humblest : he has 
no imagination, and exceedingly little either of the in- 
ventive or the constructive facultj', and may be said to 
stand in much the same relation to an epic poet, that a 
limner of fruit and dead-game pieces does to an histo- 
rical artist. But he has nature and observation ; and 
what he does in his own unpretending way is done 



288 BERNARD BARTO^T. 

accurately and well. We feel ever that he has seen 
with his own eyes, and that he describes from his own 
emotions : he gives us nothing at second-hand ; so, if 
not a high, he is ever a true and an original painter. 
There is a simple nature about many of his pieces which 
is exceedingly touching ; and had not something of the 
true inspiration burned within him, the light of his 
gentle genius could never have broken through the 
mass of encompassing darkness which seemed so help- 
lessly to shroud his early fate, — for the prime of his life 
was absorbed in toils and privations sufficient to have 
ground ordinary spirits to the dust. The marvel is, that 
he did what he has done. 

" The moving accident was not his trade ; 
To stir the blood he had no ready arts ; 
'T was his alone, reclined in niral shade, 
To pipe a simple song to thinking hearts ; " 

and he did so with a true fresh nature, if only with a 
rustic art. 

Bernard Barton, like his predecessor John Scott of 
Amwell, whom he somewhat resembled in genius, first 
attracted attention principally from the novelty of one 
of his sober sect giving utterance to his emotions in 
verse : but he had merit also of a certain kind ; and he 
continued to sustain the respectable measure of popu- 
larity acquired by his first Appearance in a series of 
poems, each characterised by the same observant views 
of man and nature, the same correct sentiment, and the 
same mild cheerfulness of tone. Although in the warp 
and woof of his loom, there might be observed a thread 
or so of egotism, it was not glaringly obtrusive. His 
chief fault was diflfuseness. He wrote fluently, and was 
thereby induced to write a great deal too much ; for 
had he elaborated more, he would have used the prun- 
ing-knife with greater freedom. One indication of good 



THOMAS HAYNES BAYLEY. 289 

taste Barton uniformly exhibited, — that of adapting his 
tone and style to his subject. He is sometimes even 
striking and picturesque, as in his "Solitary Tomb," his 
" Evening Primrose, " and the verses to " The Ivy ;" but 
he is seldom bold or varied, and, in general, rather satis- 
fies than surprises the reader. He wanted strength and 
originality to float the succession of volumes which he 
from time to time unhesitatingly launched forth for 
public favour ; but from the unweeded garden a bouquet 
might be culled, sweet in its perfume and varied in its 
hues of simple beauty. 

Thomas Haynes Bayley was the disciple of another 
school, more refined in feeling and sentiment, yet not 
deficient either in truth or nature — as far, at least, as 
these appertained to the atmosphere of the drawing- 
room. His first appearances in "Rough Sketches of 
Bath, by Q. in the Corner," were little else than clever 
imitations of Anstey ; and, for several years after, he 
simply held the reputation of a smart versifier. The 
power of his delineations and the tone of his senti- 
ments, however, deepened ; and by his latter composi- 
tions, remarkable for their taste and elegance, he 
unquestionably elevated himself into the poetical 
ranks. So admirably, indeed, did a number of his 
lyrics harmonise with music, that they attained a 
popularity second only to those of Burns and Moore. 
He possessed a playful fancy, a practised ear, a refined 
taste, and a sentiment which ranged pleasantly from 
the fanciful to the pathetic, without, however, strictly 
attaining either the highly imaginative or the deeply 
passionate ; and it is difi&cult to say in which vein he 
was the more felicitous — or whether his " Oh, no, we 
never mention her," or his " I'd be a Butterfly born in 
a bower," has had the wider circle of admirers. Be- 
tween these extremes there was a chain of sentiment 
" in linked sweetness long drawn out," which he not 
infelicitously festooned with the flowers of song. In 
T 



290 ALARIC A. WATTS. 

comparison with the general tribe of verse-mongers 
for music, Bayley might well be regarded as a "Triton 
among the minnows ;" for I know of nothing so utterly 
discreditable to British taste as the unmitigated non- 
sense rhymes, the despicable trash, which night after 
night seems to be listened to with satisfaction in our 
drawing-rooms and public places, as poetical accom- 
paniments to fashionable music. 

To a taste still more fastidious and elaborate, Alaric 
A. Watts united a vein of pathos probably deeper and 
more direct. His poetry lies somewhere between that 
of Campbell and Mrs Hemans ; but he has his own 
decided and distinctive marks, whether we look to his 
mode of regarding subjects, or his style of treating 
them. He is always elegant and refined, yet natural ; 
and looks on carelessness, as every man of taste and 
accomplishment should, as a vice unworthy of an 
artist ; for poetry assuredly requires the learned skill, 
intuitive as that may occasionally seem, as well as the 
teeming fancy. In his "Poetic Sketches," an early 
work, as well as in his more recent " Lyrics of the 
Heart," Alaric Watts has given abundant proofs, if not 
of high creative strength, of gentle pathos, of cultivated 
intellect, and an eye and ear sensitively alive to all the 
genial impulses of nature, of " home-bred delights and 
heartfelt happiness." 

Xot that we have not occasionally indications of 
higher powers, which their author could put forth, had 
he so chosen, but from which he has abstained, and 
wisely — choosing rather to paint the stream as it passes 
through pastoral valleys, and by the garden hedges of 
honey-suckled homesteads, than its foaming descent 
from the mountain-sides, and its sullen pools amid the 
gloomy overhanging rocks. Among the finest of the ly- 
rics of Alaric Watts are "The Death of the First-Born," 
"To a Sleeping Child," "Kirstall Abbey Revisited," 
" For Ever Thine,'' and " We met when Life and Love 



THOMAS K. HERVEY. 291 

were New" — although no piece has received the sanc- 
tion of his publication, unless stamped by some peculiar 
and characteristic beauty. The following verses "To a 
Child blowing Bubbles," are about a fair average of his 
powers : — 

" Thrice happy babe ! what radiant dreams are thine, 
As thus thou bid'st thine air-born bubbles soar ? — 
Who would not Wisdom's choicest gifts resign 
To be, like thee, a careless child once more ? 

To share thy simple sports and sinless glee, 
Thy breathless wonder, thy unfeigned delight, 

As, one by one, those sun-touched glories flee, 
In swift succession, from thy straining sight ; 

To feel a power within himself to make, 
Like thee, a rainbow whereso'er he goes ; 

To dream of sunshine, and like thee to wake 
To brighter visions, from his charmed repose ; — 

Who would not give his all of worldly lore, 

The hard-earned fi'uits of many a toil and care, — 

Might he but thus the faded past restore. 

Thy guileless thoughts and blissful ignorance share ! 

Yet life hath bubbles too, that soothe awhile 
The sterner dreams of man's maturer years ; 

Love, Friendship, Fortune, Fame by turns beguile. 
But melt 'neath Truth's Ithuriel touch to tears. 

Thrice happy child ! a brighter lot is thine ; 

What new illusion ere can match the first? 
We mourn to see each cherished hope decline ; 

Thy mirth is loudest when thy bubbles burst." 

The genius of T. K. Hervey — for he has genius at once 
pathetic and refined — is not unallied to that of Pringle 
and Watts, but with a dash of Thomas Moore. He 
writes uniformly with taste and elaboration, polish- 
ing the careless and rejecting the crude ; and had he 



292 REV. CHARLES WOLFE. 

addressed himself more earnestly and unreservedly to 
the task of composition, I have little doubt, from several 
specimens he has occasionally exhibited, that he might 
have occupied a higher and more distinguished place in 
our poetical literature than he can be said to have 
attained. His "Australia," and several of his lyrics, 
were juvenile pledges of future excellence, which 
maturity can scarcely be said to have fully redeemed. 

In the lottery of literature — for it seems to be in some 
respects a lottery as well as life, in so far as immediate 
success goes — Charles "Wolfe has been one of the few 
who have drawn the prize of probable immortality 
from a casual gleam of inspiration thrown over a single 
poem, consisting of only a few stanzas ; and these, too, 
little more than a spirited version from the prose of 
another. But the lyric is indeed full of fervour and 
freshness ; and his triumph is not to be grudged. The 
attention of the author was early withdrawn from 
literature to his clerical duties, to which he unreservedly 
devoted himself — and he died young ; but there is 
abundant evidence in his other early verses of a fine 
genius, which, if it had been continued to be cultivated, 
could scarcely have failed to have borne other rich 
fruits. This is sufficiently attested by several short 
pieces and fragments which he left behind, and more 
especially by the verses — 

" If I had thought thou couldst have died, 
I might not weep for thee," 

which, in elegance and tender earnestness, are worthy 
of either Campbell or Byron. The "Ode on the Burial 
of Sir John Moore " went directly to the heart of the 
nation, and it is likely to remain for ever enshrined 
there. 

The poetical reputation of Herbert Knowles — a pro- 
tege of Southey's, who died at nineteen, may also be 
said to rest on one short poem — his " Yerses written in 



"the squire's pew." 293 

the Churchyard of Richmond ; " and so does that of 
Jane Taylor on her " Squire's Pew," a lyric of exquisite 
originality and beauty, which I take some credit to 
myself for having rescued from comparative obscurity. 

'^ A slanting ray of evening light 

Shoots through the yellow pane ; 
It makes the faded crimson bright, 

And gilds the fringe again ; 
The window's Gothic framework falls 
In oblique shadows on the walls. 

And since those trappings first were new, 

How many a cloudless day, 
To rob the velvet of its hue, 

Has come and passed away ; 
How many a setting sun hath made 
That curious lattice- work of shade. 

Crumbled beneath the hillock green 

The cunning hand must be, 
That carved this fretted door, I ween, 

Acorn, and fleur-de-lis; 
And now the worm hath done her part 
In mimicking the chisel's art. 

In days of yore (as now we call), 

When the first James was king, 
The courtly knight from yonder hall 

His train did hither bring. 
All seated round, in order due, 

With broidered suit and buckled shoe. 

On damask cushions decked with fringe 

All reverently they knelt ; 
Prayer-books with brazen hasp and hinge, 

In ancient English spelt, 
Each holding in a lily hand 
Responsive to the priest's command. 



294 "the squire's pew." 

Now, streaming down the vaulted aisle, 
The sunbeam, long and lone, 

Illumes the characters a while 
Of their inscription stone ; 

And there, in marble hard and cold, 

The knight with all his train behold. 

Outstretched together are exprest 

He and my lady fair, 
With hands uplifted on the breast, 

In attitude of prayer ; 
Long-visaged, clad in armour, he — 
With rutfled arm and boddice she. 

Set forth in order as they died. 

Their numerous offspring bend, 
Devoutly kneeling side by side, 
'^<- ^ As if they^ intend 

For past omissions to atone. 

By saying endless prayers in stone. 

Those mellow days are past and dim, 

But generations new, 
In regular descent from him, 

Have filled the stately pew, — 
And in the same succession go 
To occupy the vaults below. 

And now the polished modem squire 
And his gay train appear. 

Who duly to the hall retire, 
A season every year; 

And fill the seats with belle and beau, 

As 'twas so many years ago. 

Perchance all thoughtless as they tread 
The hollow-sounding floor 

Of that dark house of kindred dead. 
Which shall, as heretofore, 

In turn receive to silent rest 

Another and another guest : 



VARIOUS POETS OP THE TERIOD. 295 

The feathered hearse and sable train, 

In all their wonted state, 
Shall wind along the village lane, 

And stand before the gate ; 
Brought many a distant county through, 
To join the final rendezvous. 

And when the race is swept away, 

All to their dusty beds. 
Still shall the mellow evening ray 

Shine gaily o'er their heads ; 
While other faces, fresh and new, 
Shall fill the squire's deserted pew ! " 

The same may be said of two beautiful lyrical gems, 
which many years ago I stumbled on in a stray number 
of the "Gentlemen's Magazine" for 1809— " The Drip- 
ping Cupid " from Anacreon, and the carol, " When shall 
we Three meet again V which have since found a place 
in school collections, and in a thousand young memories. 
Did not my limits almost wholly preclude, I should have 
liked to have here dilated at some length on the merits 
of not a few poets who justly demand honourable notice, 
as connected with this particular era ; but I can do no 
more than emphatically allude to Dale, and Conder, and 
Keble, and Huie, and Knox, and Edmonstone, and Lyte, 
who have worthily devoted themselves to sacred sub- 
jects ; to Charles Swain, whose poems are distinguished 
by delicacy of feeling, as well as generous and manly 
sentiment ; to John Malcolm, who always wrote with 
taste and grace ; to Carrington, whose " Banks of the 
Tamar," and "Dartmoor," are full of fine descriptive 
power ; to Sir Martin Archer Shee, whose " Rhymes on 
Art" were classically elegant ; to Henry Neele, who 
possessed much of the pathos and sensibility of Kirke 
White ; to George Darley, whose " Sylva, or May Queen," 
and "Errors of Ecstacie," were characterised by exube- 
rant fancy and fine harmony of versification, although 



296 VARIOUS POETS OF THE PERIOD, 

marred by improbability of incident and fantastical 
views of life ; to Bo wring, whose " many-Ian guaged 
lore" culled poetical delights for us from all the corners 
of Europe, and whose own original verses were ever 
spirited and fine ; to Winthrop Mackworth Praed, the 
coadjutor of Macaulay in "The Etonian," whose serio- 
comic legends were coloured with fresh and flowing 
fancy, and who, in a great degree, anticipated both Hood 
and Ingoldsby in a peculiar comic vein ; to Charles 
Chalklin, whose "Ghost of the Oratory," and lyrical 
themes, overflow with poetic suggestion, and are often 
of high speculative beauty, sadly defective though 
they are rendered by redundance of imagery and want 
of keeping : to Abraham Heraud, whose " Judgment of 
the Flood," and "Descent into Hell," although over- 
ambitious in style and language, display power and 
imagination ; to R. W. Jameson, whose "IS'imrod" is 
a daring conception, worked out in many passages with 
vigour and eff'ect ; and to Edwin Atherstone, whose 
"Last Days of Herculaneum," and "Fall of Nineveh," 
although poems of amazing copiousness and considerable 
invention, are not great poems. In them we have intel- 
lectual pomp rather than intellectual strength — a pro- 
digality of blossoms, but a scarcity of fruit. Many of 
Atherstone's pictures, however, taken by themselves, 
more especially his battle-scenes, are striking and ani- 
mated ; but he lacks the ideal — the intuitive touch 
which alone can give strict individuality, and which 
great masters only possess. 



I 



I 



LECTUEE VII. 

PAET SECOND. 



Ballad-historic poetry.— J. G. Lockhart : Spanish ballads : his Napoleon.— 
T. B. Macaulay ; Lays of Ancient Rome, Lake Regillus.— Professor 
Aytoun ; Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, Battle of KiUiecrankie. — Mrs 
Stuart Menteath, Mrs Ogilvy, Miss Agnes Strickland.— Sir Edward 
Lytton Bulwer : his poems and translations. — Rev. John Moultrie ; 
stanzas, " M?/ Scottish Lassie." — Scottish and Irish poets of the period. — 
Dirge by Mrs Downing. — The Metaphysic-romantic school. — Alfred Ten- 
nyson ; Ballads, Princess, and In Memoriam. — Specimens, Oriana and 
Stanzas. — R. M. Milnes and Dr Charles Mackay. — Robert Browning ; 
Paracelsus, Sordello, Bells and Pomegranates. — John Sterling.— Philip 
James Bayley ; Festus, The Angel World : extract. Dream of Decay. — 
Mysticism and obscurity the pervading faults of our recent poetry. — 
Concluding remarks. 



In some brief introductory remarks on the poetry of 
Scott, I referred to the earliest forms of national verse — 
the song and ballad ; the former more particularly 
relating to sentiment, the latter to action. Indeed, a 
ballad may be defined to be the simplest shape of narra- 
tive verse ; nor does it detract much from the perfect 
strictness of this definition, that the characters should 
be made occasionally to moralise and reflect. The 
ballads of one nation necessarily differ widely from 
those of another in scenery and manners, as well as in 
prevailing local or natural associations : but, withal, 
simplicity of style and feeling is a requisite as well as 
a uniform characteristic. 



298 JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. 

In 1823, John Gibson Lockhart, previously distin- 
guished as the author of " Valerius," " Adam Blair," 
" Reginald Daltou," and " Matthew Wald," published 
his translations from the ancient Spanish ; and although 
most of these mediaeval ballads were wonderfully fine in 
themselves, they certainly lost nothing — as the shield 
of Martinus Scriblerus is said to have done^ — from being 
subjected to the tact and skill of modern furbishing. 
On the contrary, what was tame he inspired ; what was 
lofty gained additional grandeur ; and even the tender 
— as in the lay of " Count Alar9os" — grew still more 
pathetic beneath his touch. The translations consisted 
of three classes — the Historical, the Romantic, and the 
Moorish ; and among the most striking are " The 
Avenging Childe," " The Seven Heads," "The Bull-fight 
of Granada," " Zara's Ear-rings," and, beyond all, 
" Count Alarcos and the Infanta Soliza," than which, 
as rendered by Mr Lockhart, no finer ballad of its kind 
— more gushingly natural, or more profoundly pathetic 
— probably exists in the poetry of any nation. 

These translations derive, as I have said, not a little 
of their excellence from Mr Lockhart's being himself a 
poet of fine genius — clear in his conceptions, and mascu- 
line in execution. His pictures have all the distinctness 
of an autumn landscape, outlined on the horizon by an 
unclouded morning sun. What he might have done 
had he continued scaling the heights of Parnassus, there 
could have been little difficulty in predicating ; and 
most assuredly the poetical literature of our age lost 
much by his desertion of the lyre, who might have been 
one of its great masters — whether he had chosen to tread 
in the steps of " Dan Chaucer" or of " Glorious John ;" 
for he could wield at will the graphic brush of the 
painter of " Palamon and Arcite," as well as etch with 
the needle that outlined " Absalom and Achitophel." 
Many of Lockhart's scattered verses are exquisitely fine, 
and range from the genially humorous of " Captain 



"napoleon." 299 

Paton's Lament," to the majestically solemn of his 
" Napoleon" — which latter alone would have for ever 
stamped their author a poet of a high order : — 

" The mighty sun had just gone down 

Into the chambers of the deep ; 
The ocean birds had upward flown, 

Each in his cave to sleep ; 
And silent was the island shore, 

And breathless all the broad red sea, 
And motionless beside the door 

Our solitary tree. 
Our only tree, our ancient palm, 

Whose shadow sleeps our door beside, 
Partook the universal calm, 

When Buonaparte died. 
An ancient man, a stately man. 

Came forth beneath the spreading tree, 
His silent thoughts I could not scan, 

His tears I needs must see. 
A trembling hand had partly covered 

The old man's weeping countenance. 
Yet something o'er his sorrow hovered, 

That spake of war and France ; 
Something that spake of other days. 

When trumpets pierced the kindling air, 
And the keen eye could firmly gaze 

Through battle's crimson glare. 
Said I, ' Perchance this faded hand, 

When life beat high, and hope was young, 
By Lodi's wave, or Syria's sand, 

The bolt of death hath flung. 
Young Buonaparte's battle-cry 

Perchance hath kindled this old cheek ; 
It is no shame that he should sigh — 

His heart is like to break ! 
He hath been with him young and old : 

He climbed with him the Alpine snow; 
He heard the cannon when they rolled 

Along the river Po. 



300 " NAPOLEON. " 

His soul was as a sword, to leap 

At his accustomed leader's word ; 
I love to see the old man weep — 

He knew no other lord. 
As if it were but yesternight, 

This man remembers dark Eylau ; 
His dreams are of the eagle's flight 

Victorious long ago. 
The memories of worser time 

Are all as shadows unto him ; 
Fresh stands the picture of his prime — 

The later trace is dim.' 
I entered, and I saw him lie 

Within the chamber all alone ; 
I drew near very solemnly 

To dead Xapoleon. 
He was not shrouded in a shroud — 

He lay not like the viilgar dead — 
Yet all of haughty, stern, and proud. 

From his pale brow was fled. 
He had put harness on to die. 

The eagle star shone on his breast, 
His sword lay bare his pillow nigh, 

The sword he liked the best. 
But calm, most calm, was all his face, 

A solemn smile was on his lips, 
His eyes were closed in pensive grace — 

A most serene eclipse ! 
Ye would have said, some sainted sprite 

Had left its passionless abode — 
Some man, whose prayer at morn and night 

Had duly risen to God. 
What thoughts had calmed his dying breast 

(For calm he died) cannot be known ; 
Nor would I wound a warrior's rest, — 

Farewell, Napoleon ! " 

Mr Macaulay's " Lays of Ancient Rome" differed 
initially from Mr Lockhart's Spanish translations in 
this, that the latter worked from the native materials, 



THE RIGHT HON. T. B. MACAULAY. 301 

which he refined and improved ; the former simply 
from the general scope and spirit of ancient legends. 
Taking it for granted, according to the very probable 
theory of Niebuhr, that the semi-fabulous traditions of 
all infant nations must have existed primarily in a 
metrical form, he re-transferred some of the portions of 
early Roman history back into the shape which might 
be supposed to have been their original one ere histo- 
ricised by Livy, and this with consummate imaginative 
and artistic ability. He is entirely of the Homer, the 
Chaucer, and Scott school, his poetry being thoroughly 
that of action ; and sentiment is seldom ever more than 
interjection ally introduced — the utmost fidelity being 
thus shown to the essential characteristics of that 
species of composition which he has so triumphantly 
illustrated. 

The four subjects selected b)^ Mr Macaulay are those 
of " Horatius Codes," " The Battle of the Lake Regillus," 
"Virginia," and "The Prophecy of Capys;" and he 
has clothed them in a drapery of homely grandeur, yet 
at the same time with a picturesqueness of effect, which 
carries us back to Homer in his wars of Troy, and in 
his wanderings of Ulysses. Mr Macaulay has evidently 
sedulously endeavoured to preserve a thorough distinc- 
tive nationality, not only in the materials, natural and 
historical, but in the very spirit of his different legends ; 
and he has wonderfully succeeded in this delicate, diffi- 
cult, and laborious task. In vividness of outline, in 
graphic breadth, and in rapidity of narrative, he 
approaches the author of " The Lay " and " Marmion " 
— like the mighty minstrel, unreservedly throwing 
himself into and identifying himself with his subject. 
Probably the finest, at least the most poetical, of the 
four legends, is " The Prophecy of Capys," which 
breathes the very spirit of antique simplicity, and is 
encrusted with such a thick-falling shower of local 
allusions as to stamp it with the air of truth. " The 



302 "lays of ancient rome." 

Battle of the Bridge" is, beyond the others, full of 
heroic action and energy ; and " Virginia" is touching, 
from the very simplicity of its majestic sentiment— so 
childlike and yet so noble. 

Mr Macaulay is another of the few poets who 
have written too little by far. The fragment of 
" The Armada" is like a Torso of Hercules — redo- 
lent of graphic power ; and " The Battle of Ivry," 
although scarcely equal to it, is also remarkable for 
its masculine conception and disdain of petty orna- 
ment. 

The following placid descriptive sketch from " The 
Battle of the Lake Regillus" contrasts finely with the 
ancient stirring associations of the scene : — 

" Now on the place of slaughter 

Are cots and sheepfolds seen, 
And rows of vines, and fields of wheat, 

And apple-orchards green : 
The swine crush the big acorns 

That fall from Corne's oaks ; 
Upon the turf, by the fair fount. 

The reaper's pottage smokes, 
The fisher baits his angle. 

The hunter twangs his bow. 
Little they think on those strong limbs 

That moidder deep below. 
Little they think how sternly 

That day the trumpets pealed ; 
How, in the slippery swamp of blood, 

Warrior and war-horse reeled ; 
How wolves came with fierce gallop, 

And crows on eager wings, 
To tear the flesh of captains. 

And peck the eyes of kings; 
How thick the dead lay scattered 

Under the Portiau height; 
How, through the gates of Tusculum, 

Raved the wild stream of flight : 



WILLIAM E. AYTOUN. 303 

And how the Lake Regillus 

Bubbled with crimson foam, 
What time the Thirty Cities 

Came forth to war with Rome." 

Professor Aytoun has selected his ballad themes 
from striking incidents and from stirring scenes in our 
mediaeval Scottish history — some remote as the field of 
riodden, others as recent as that of Drummossie Muir ; 
and he has thrown over them the light of an imagina- 
tion at once picturesque and powerful. He has allowed 
himself a wider range of illustration than either Lock- 
hart or Macaulay thought consistent with the mere 
ballad — occasionally ascending from its essential simpli- 
city into a loftier and more ambitious strain of com- 
position, midway between the classical and romantic ; 
and probably the peculiar nature of some of his subjects, 
for adequate management, entitled him to do so. The 
jperfervidum ingenium Scotorum — that burning, irrepres- 
sible energy of character which, whether directed 
towards good or towards evil, has ever distinguished 
our country — breathes throughout all his Lays, and 
lends even stern fact the etherealising hues of fiction. 
We are carried by them back to the wild and ever- 
changing and tempest-shrouded days of old, when every 
man's hand w^as on his sword, and every man's house 
was his castle ; and we so enter into their daring, 
adventurous, and reckless spirit, that forgetting Elihu 
Burritt and universal peace associations, and these 
prosaic Cobdenish times, we are half inclined, Quixot- 
ishly, and without weighing the consequences, to 
exclaim, in the excited spirit of worthy Jonathan Old- 
buck in "The Antiquary" — 

" Sound, sound the trumpet, wake the fife, 
And to a slumbering world proclaim, 
A single hour of glorious life 
Is worth an age without a name ! " 



304 " BATTLE OF KILLIECRA^^KIE." 

Regarded by themselves, as separate poems, the finest 
of these " Lays," in my opinion, are the " Edinburgh 
after Flodden," " The Burial- March of Dundee," and 
" The Execution of Montrose ;" although it is diffi- 
cult to conceive anything more touching than the 
visionary musings of " Charles Edward at A^ersailles," 
or grander and more animated than the battle-sketch 
of Killiecrankie. The latter is like a picture by Wouver- 
mans : — 

" Burning eye and flushing cheek 
Told the clansmen's fierce emotion, 

And they harder drew their breath ; 
For their souls were strong within them, 

Stronger than the grasp of death. 
Soon we heard a challenge-trumpet 

Sounding in the Pass below, 
And the distant tramp of horses, 

And the voices of the foe : 
Down we crouched amid the braken, 

Till the Lowland ranks drew near, 
Panting like the hounds in summer, 

When they scent the stately deer. 
From the dark defile emerging, 

Next we saw the squadrons come, 
Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers 

Marching to the tuck of drum ; 
Through the scattered wood of birches, 

O'er the broken ground and heath, 
Woimd the long battalion slowly, 

Till they gained the field beneath ; 
Then we bounded from our covert. — 

Judge how looked the Saxons then, 
When they saw the rugged mountain. 

Start to life with armed men ! 
Like a tempest down the ridges 

Swept the humcane of steel, 
Rose the slogan of Macdonald — 

Flashed the broadsword of Locheil ! 



" THE VIOLET," FROM GOETHE. 305 

Vainly sped the withering volley 

'Mongst the foremost of our band — 
On we poured until we met them 

Foot to foot, and hand to hand. 
Horse and man went down like drift-wood 

When the floods are black at Yule, 
And their carcasses are whii'ling 

In the Garry's deepest pool : 
Horse and man went down before us — 

Living foe there tarried none 
On the field of Killiecrankie, 

When that stubborn fight was done ! " 

Among the many fine miscellaneous lyrics of Pro- 
fessor Aytoun, the finest to my taste are "The Old 
Camp," which has a strange twilight mysterious interest 
about it ; " CEnone," full of classic feeling and grace ; 
and " The Buried Flower," most musical, most melan- 
choly, in its record of sweet and bitter recollections. I 
have also to mention the excellency of his translations 
from the ancient and modern Greek, as well as of the 
minor poems of Goethe, whereof he has admirably 
managed to preserve the native characteristics, as well 
as tlie spirit and vitality. The following stanzas, for 
instance, scarcely read like a transfusion of sentiment 
from one language into another : — 

"A violet blossomed on the lea, 
Half hidden from the eye, 
As fair a flower as you might see ; 

When there came tripping by 
A shepherd maiden fair and young, 

Lightly, lightly o'er the lea; 

Care she knew not, and she sung 

Merrily ! 

' Oh were I but the fairest flower 
That blossoms on the lea, 
If only for one little hour. 
That she might gather me — 
U 



306 SIR EDWARD LTTTON BULWER. 

Clasp me in her bonny breast ! ' 
Thought the little flower. 
* Oh ! that in it I might rest 
But an hour ! ' 

Lack-a-day ! up came the lass, 

Heeded not the violet — 
Trod it down into the grass ; 
Though it died, 'twas happy yet. 
' Trodden down alth ough I lie, 
Yet my death is very sweet — 
For I cannot choose but die 
At her feet ! '" 

I must here also meution the " Ballads and Lays from 
Scottish History" by Norval Clyne, a young author, 
and full of promise ; " The Book of Highland Min- 
strelsy" by Mrs Ogilvy, in which is beautifully reflected 
much of the poetry of the Celtic character, and which 
gives evidence of an imaginative, an energetic, and an 
accomplished mind, as well as does also her last work, 
"The Legends of Tuscany;" and the "Lays of the 
Kirk and Covenant," by Mrs Stuart Menteath, which, 
although occasionally perhaps too sketchy and unelabo- 
rate, are pregnant with fancy and feeling — as indicated, 
more especially, by those entitled "The Child of James 
Melville," and " The Martyrs of Wigtoun." 

The " Historic Scenes and Sketches" of Miss Agnes 
Strickland require also, in justice, to be noticed here. 
Many of them are fine and spirited ; hurrying on the 
reader by that glow and animation of style, and that 
picturesqueness of description, characteristic of the his- 
torian of the Queens of England and of Scotland. 

The brilliant fame of Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer as 
a novelist, and as a dramatic writer, has tended much 
to eclipse and disparage his appearances as a poet. In 
the two former departments he ranks deservedly as a 
magnate ; in the last, his status is more questionable, 



REV. JOHN MOULTRIE. 307 

although, I confess, this is a thing rather to be felt than 
explained. He constantly touches the confines of suc- 
cess, and stands before the gate — but the "Open 
Sesame ! " comes not to his lips. Perhaps it is that, in 
his themes, we have rather able and eloquent treatment 
than that colouring glow of imagination which has 
been termed inspiration. With fine descriptive powers, 
and with boundless range of illustration, there is a 
want of reliance on simple nature — of that fusion of 
the poet in his subject, which can alone give that sub- 
ject consecration — the poetic art, without the poetic 
vision ; and this defect is apparent in all his verse, from 
his early " Weeds and Wildflowers, " " O'Niel the 
Rebel," " Ismael," and " The Siamese Twins," down to 
his "Eva, or the Ill-omened Mal-riage," his "Modern 
Timon," and his more elaborate and ambitious "King 
Arthur." His translations of the poems and ballads of 
Schiller are, however, justly held in estimation among 
scholars, for their spirit and fidelity. 

The Rev. John Moultrie, a poet of elegant mind and 
of considerable pathetic power, should have been before 
mentioned, as more strictly belonging to the time of 
Heber, Milman, and Croly, and as a coadjutor of 
Macaulay, and Mackworth Praed in "The Etonian." 
His "Godiva" is said to have been a great favourite 
with the late Mr GifFord of the "Quarterly" — a not very 
lenient judge ; and many of his lyrics overflow with 
sentiment and feeling. His verses on his "Brother's 
Grave" are particularly striking ; and I am not aware 
of any prototype for the following fine fresh stanzas : — 

" Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! here's a hearty health 

to thee, 
For thine eye so bright, thy form so light, and thy step so 

firm and free ; 
For all thine artless elegance, and all thy native grace, 
To the music of thy mirthful voice, and the sunshine of thy 

face ; 



308 "here's to thee, my Scottish lassie." 

For thy guileless look and speech sincere, yet sweet as 

speech can be — 
Here's a health, my Scottish lassie ! here's a hearty health 

to thee ! 



Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! Though my glow of 

youth is o'er ; 
And I, as once I felt and dreamed, must feel and dream no 

more ; 
Though the world, with all its frosts and storms, has chilled 

my soul at last. 
And genius with the foodful looks of youthful friendship 



Though my path is dark and lonely, now, o'er this world's 

dreary sea. 
Here's a health, my Scottish lassie ! here's a hearty health 

to thee ! 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! though I know that not 

for me 
Is thine eye so bright, thy form so light, and thy step so 

firm and free ; 
Though thou, with cold and careless looks, "vsilt often pass 

me by, 
Unconscious of my swelling heaii; and of my wistful eye ; 
Though thou wilt wed some Highland love, nor waste one 

thought on me, 
Here's a health, my Scottish lassie, here's a heai-ty health 

to thee ! 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! when I meet thee in the 

throng 
Of merry youths and maidens dancing lightsomely along, 
I'll dream away an hour or twain, still gazing on thy form 
As it flashes through the baser crowd, like Hghtning through 

a storm ; 
And I, perhaps, shall touch thy hand, and share thy looks 

of glee, 
And for once, my Scottish lassie, dance a giddy dance with 

thee ! 



i 



" here's to thee, my SCOTTISH LASSIE." 309 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! I shall think of thee at 

even, 
When I see its first and fairest star come smiling up through 

heaven ; 
I shall hear thy sweet and touching voice in every wind that 

grieves, 
As it whirls from the abandoned oak its withered autumn 



In the gloom of the wild forest, in the stillness of the sea, 
I shall think, my Scottish lassie, I shall often think of thee ! 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! In my sad and lonely 
hours, 

The thought of thee comes o'er me like the breath of dis- 
tant flowers : 

Like the music that enchants mine ear, the sights that bless 
mine eye. 

Like the verdure of the meadow, like the azure of the sky, 

Like the rainbow in the evening, like the blossoms on the 
tree, 

Is the thought, my Scottish lassie ! is the lonely thought 
of thee. 

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie ! Though my muse must 

soon be dumb, 
(For graver thoughts and duties mth my graver years are 

come,) 
Though my soul must burst the bonds of earth, and learn 

to soar on high. 
And to look on this world's follies with a calm and sober eye ; 
Though the merry wine must seldom flow, the revel cease 

for me, 
Still to thee, my Scottish lassie ! still I'll drink a health 

to thee ! 

Here's a health, my Scottish lassie ! here's a parting health 

to thee ! 
May thine be still a cloudless lot, though it be far from me i 
May still thy laughing eye be bright, and open still thy brow, 
Thy thoughts as pure, thy speech as free, thy heart as light 

as now ! 



310 SCOTTISH AXD IRISH POETS. 

And whatsoe'er my after fate, my dearest toast shall be — 
Still a health, my Scottish lassie ! still a hearty health to 
thee ! " 

Although the three great portions of the United 
Kingdom have been gradually amalgamating in lan- 
guage, customs, and social institutions, and the rough 
angles of distinctive character, as well as minor diffe- 
rences and peculiarities, have been steadily and rapidly 
disappearing, more especially within the last twenty- 
five 5^ears, yet this process has not hitherto been so 
complete but that Scotland and Ireland still continue, 
although at more broken intervals, to pour forth 
snatches of their own native minstrelsies. Of our own 
nation, the bards who have been more particularly pro- 
minent are, James Ballantyne, William Thom, William 
Nicolson, Alexander Rodger, David Yedder, Joseph 
Train, Robert Gilfillan, Charles Gray, and Robert Nicol 
— the last especially a young man of high promise, — all 
of whom have honourably, and in their degree, contri- 
buted some beautiful lyrics to the national collection ; 
while from the immense mass of verse — good, bad, and 
indifferent — which diversify the pages of the omne- 
gathenim entitled " Whistlebinkie," it would seem that, 
in the western shires, at least two per cent of the popu- 
lation possess the gift of song, and are au fait at express- 
ing themselves " in numerous verse." Not less distinct 
in their native character are the ballads and songs of 
modern Ireland. The best of these — and many of them 
are full of spirit, wild grace, and passionate beauty, — 
have proceeded from the pens of Thomas Davis, Gerald 
Griffin, John Banim, T. J. Callanan, Samuel Ferguson, 
William Maginn, Clarence Mangan, Edward Walsh, 
Samuel Lover, and John Anster ; and we have, besides, 
touching specimens by Mrs Tighe, the Hon. Mrs Price 
Blackwood, and Mrs Downing. I know of few things 
so wildly sweet, so profoundly solemn, as the following 
stanzas by the last-named lady, entitled, " The Grave of 



"THE GRAVE OF MACAURA." 311 

Macaura," a leader who, it seems, fell in fight with the 
Fitzgeralds iu 1261. 

" And this is thy grave, Macaura, 

Here by the pathway lone. 
Where the thorn-blossoms are bending 

Over thy mouldered stone. 
Alas ! for the sons of glory ; 

Oh ! thou of the darkened brow, 
And the eagle plume, and the belted clans, 

Is it here thou art sleeping now ? 

Oh wild is the spot, Macaura, 

In which they have laid thee low — 
The field where thy people triumphed 

Over a slaughtered foe ; 
And loud was the Banshee's wailing. 

And deep was the clansmen's sorrow, 
When, with bloody hands and burning teai'S, 

They buried thee here, Macaura ! 

And now thy dwelling is lonely. 

King of the rushing horde ; 
And now thy battles are over, 

Chief of the shining sword ; 
And the rolling thunder echoes 

O'er torrent and mountain free, 
But alas ! and alas ! INIacaura 

It will not awaken thee. 

Farewell to thy grave, Macaura, 

Where the slanting sunbeams shine, 
And the brier and waving fern 

Over thy slumbers twine ; 
Thou whose gathering summons 

Could waken the sleeping glen ; 
Macaura, alas for thee and thine, 

'Twill never be heard again !" 

Mixed Tip with many of the elements used by Words- 
worth, Hunt, Keats, and Shelley, poetry, about twenty 



312 ALFRED TENNYSON : 

years ago, began to assume something like a new form 
of manifestation in the verse of Alfred Tennyson, — a 
man of fine and original, but of capricious and wayward 
genius. 

With a delightful manner of his own — one more so 
this age knoweth not — Tennyson seems strangely desti- 
tute of self-reliance. This fine peculiar manner he has 
exhibited in "Locksley Hall," "The Talking Oak," 
" The Day-dream," " The Moated Grange," " The May 
Queen," "The Lotos Eaters," and "The Morte d' Ar- 
thur ; " as also in his ballads of " Oriana," " Lady Clara 
Vere de Vere," and "The Lord of Burleigh ;" yet, not 
content with it — seemingly because it is native to his 
mind, and spontaneous — he is continually making in- 
felicitous incursions into the chartered demesnes of 
others, — more especially of the bards just enumerated. 
This is most unfortunate, and it is wrong, more espe- 
cially as perfectly unrequired. No one ever mistook 
a page of Spenser's " Faery Queen " for a page either 
of Davenant's "Gondibert," or of Fletcher's "Purple 
Island " — a page of William Shakespeare for a page of 
John Milton — or even one of Dryden for one of Pope. 
In all great masters there is — must be — a perfect unity 
in style and handling, however they may vary their 
subjects, as Byron did, from " Childe Harold" to " Don 
Juan." It is so throughout all Crabbe, from his early 
"Library" and "Village," to his posthumous tales, 
penned half a century afterwards ; throughout all Scott, 
from his " Lay " to his " Lord of the Isles." The mind 
that conceived " Madoc " reigns unaltered, save in the 
degrees of power, throughout " Thalaba," " Kehama," 
and " Roderick." " The child being father of the man," 
the Lyrical Ballads claim kindred with the " Recluse." 
Even Wilson's juvenile "Verses on James Grahame" 
only precede in time his maturer " Laiimore." In the 
one, we have the mountain stream ; in the other, that 
same stream as the broad lowland river. Far differentlv 



HIS VARIOUS STYLES. 313 

stand matters with Alfred Tennyson. His compositions 
are as unlike each other as the opposite hues of the rain- 
bow — as the features of the Goth from the Negro — as 
Nova Zembla from the Line. He is now a simulacrum of 
Shelley, as in " The Palace of Sin," " The Vision of Art," 
and "The Two Voices," — now of Wordsworth, as in 
" Dora," and " The Gardener's Daughter," — now of Cole- 
ridge, as in "The Merman and Mermaid," — now of 
Keats, as in " (Enone," — and now of Quarles, Donne, 
and Wither combined, in " The Death of the Old Year," 
" The Deserted House," " Adeline and Claribel," and 
"The Poet's Mind." 

Tennyson has thus made his poetry a rich mosaic, 
exhibiting various styles of excellence ; but it has this 
certain and pervading virtue, that it is never in any in- 
stance wire- woven or heavy. In very dread of this, he 
flies to the exactly opposite extreme, until he almost 
induces the belief in his readers that he must regard the 
uncommon as synonymous with the excellent. Over- 
looking obvious, he hunts for recondite beauties — shuts 
his eyes on the planet Jupiter, glowing like a sun at 
the zenith, yet opens them on the Georgium Sidus, 
glinting like a firefly through the mists of the horizon. 
Sometimes he is out-and-out fantastic, as in " The Lady 
of Shallot;" sometimes scholastic, as in "Ulysses;" 
sometimes monastic, as in "St Simeon Stylites;" and 
sometimes bombastic, as in " Audley Court," as well as 
in sundry passages of " The Princess." He shrinks from 
looking Nature straight in the face : it is against his 
temperament and his system; although when he has 
mastered his evident reluctance to do so— as in his 
"Dora" and "May Queen" — I like him more heartily 
than in almost any other of his many-sided excellencies. 

Througliout these two pieces runs a vein of pathos 
exquisitely simple, and as precious and pure as that 
prevading the " We are Seven," the " Lucy Gray," and 
" The Pet Lamb " of Wordsworth — a pathos which goes 



314 BALLAD OF OKI ANA. 

at once to the heart; while, in "The Morte d'Arthur" 
— to me the highest of all Tennyson's efforts — there is a 
serenity of solitude and repose, a rude remote magnifi- 
cence, haunting the imagination with a feeling of dreary 
sublimity. In the ballad of "Oriana," and in the 
" Recollections of the Arabian Nights," we have his pic- 
turesqueness, as viewed from the most opposite quarters 
— of Eastern sunshine and Arctic frost ; nor would it 
be easy to which rightly to award the palm. The 
incidents in both are mere pegs, on which, in the one, 
he has hung garlands of the most luxurious imagery — 
rich, warm, and glowing with beauty ; while the other, 
bleak and wild as an iceberg, is draperied in the gloom 
of self-accusing guilt, delirious regret, and sullen despair. 
Take the latter, and perhaps the finer : — 

" My heart is wasted with my woe, 

Oriana ; 
There is no rest for me below, 

Oriana. 
"When the long dun wolds are ribbed with snow, 
And loud the ISTorland whirlwinds blow, 

Oriana ; 
Alone I wander to and fro, 

Oriana. 
Ere the light on dark was growing, 

Oriana; 
At midnight the cock was crowing, 

Oriana ; 
Winds were blowing, waters flowing, 
We heard the steeds to battle going, 

Oriana; 
Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, 

Oriana. 
In the yew wood black as night, 

Oriana, 
Ere I rode into the fight, 

Oriana, 
While blissful tears blinded my sight 



BALLAD OF OKIANA. 315 

By star-shine, and by moonlight, 

Oriana, 
I to thee my troth did plight, 

Oriana. 
She stood upon the castle wall, 

Oriana : 
She watched my crest among them all, 

Oriana : 
She saw me fight, she heard me call. 
When forth there stepped a foeman tall, 

Oriana, 
Atween me and the castle wall, 

Oriana. 
The bitter arrow went aside, 

Oriana, 
The false, false arrow went aside, 

Oriana ; 
The damned arrow glanced aside, 
And pierced thy heart —my love, my bride, 

Oriana ! 
Thy heart — my life, my love, my bride, 

Oriana ! 
Oh ! narrow, narrow was the space, 

Oriana : 
Loud, loud rang out the trumpet's brays, 

Oriana. 
Oh ! deathful stabs were dealt apace, 
The battle deepened in its place, 

Oriana ; 
And I was down upon my face, 

Oriana. 
They should have stabbed me where I lay, 

Oriana ! 
How could I rise and come away, 

Oriana ? 
How could I look upon the day ? 
They should have stabbed me where I lay, 

Oriana. 
They should have trod me into clay, 

Oriana. 



316 " THE PRINCESS : " 

Ob ! breaking heart tbat will not break, 

Oriana; 
Ob ! pale, pale face, so sweet and meek, 

Oriana. 
Tbou smilest, but tbou dost not speak, 
And then tbe tears I'un down my cheek, 

Oriana : 
"What wantest thou 1 whom dost thou seek, 

Oriana 1 
I cry aloud ; none hear my cries, 

Oriana ; 
Thou comest atween me and tbe skies, 

Oriana. 
I feel the tears of blood arise 
Up from my heart unto my eyes, 

Oriana : 
Within thy heart my arrow lies, 

Oriana. 
Oh, cursed hand ! oh, cursed blow ! 

Oi'iana ! 
Oh, happy thou that best low, 

Oriana ! 
All night the silence seems to flow 
Beside me in my utter woe, 

Oriana. 
A weary, weary way I go, 

Oriana. 
When Norland winds pipe down the sea, 

Oriana; 
I walk, I dare not think of thee, 

Oriana. 
Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree, 
I dare not die, and come to thee, 

Oriana : 
I hear the roaring of the sea, 

Oriana." 

Regarding " The Princess," it is no marvel that such a 
contrariety of opinion Las been expressed by seemingly 
competent judges. Its beauties and faults are so inex- 



ITS INCONGRUITIES. 317 

tricably interwoven, and the latter are so glaring and 
many — nay, often apparently so wilful — that, as a 
sincere admirer of the genius of Tennyson, I could 
almost wish the poem had remained unwritten. I admit 
the excellence of particular passages ; but it has neither 
general harmony of design, nor sustained merit of 
execution. We have ever and anon scintillations of the 
true fire, glimpses of rare and genuine beauty, but these 
are anon smothered by affectations, or vitiated by man- 
nerisms. Associations utterly incongruous are conti- 
nually found linked together — the beautiful with the 
deformed, the majestic with the mean, the masculine 
with the puerile, Helen of Paris with the Hottentot 
Venus, Sir Walter Raleigh with Elwes the miser, Harry 
Hotspur with Justice Shallow ; while in its versifica- 
tion we have involution and harshness, which, whether 
the result of carelessness, or designed for the purpose of 
evading monotony, are equally infelicitous. 

Xo poetry can be reckoned of high excellence in which 
are not evinced the capacity to conceive, as well as the 
capacity to finish — taste governing, moulding, and mo- 
delling the rough-hewn creations of fancy, dispensing 
with redundancies, and bringing each separate aspect 
into harmonious subordination to the general effect. 
" How much the power of poetry depends on the nice 
inflections of rhythm alone, can be proved," as James 
Montgomery beautifully observes, "by taking the finest 
passages of Milton or Shakespeare, and merely putting 
them into prose, with the least possible variation of the 
words themselves. The attempt would be like gather- 
ing up dew-drops, which appear jewels and pearls upon 
the grass, but run into water in the hand ; the essence 
and the elements remain, but the grace, the sparkle, and 
the form are gone." 

To this I would add, that congruity of style and 
management are quite as necessary as congruity of 
imagery, rhythm, or language. Wordsworth certainly 



318 "the princess," a medley. 

exorbitantly taxes his reader's ideas of consistency when 
he inculcates the highest lessons of philosophic morality 
through the medium of a peripatetic pedlar — " a vagrant 
merchant bending 'neath his load" — one who must be 
supposed (else he had no business there) this moment 
measuring out Welsh flannel, and the next riding the 
high-horse of transcendental metaphysics. But we feel 
all the while that, nomine mutato, it is not the pedlar, 
but the poet who speaks, although not in 2^roprid per- 
sona — the latter making the former his mere puppet 
mouth-piece. The incongruities of "The Princess" are 
of a far more inexplicable kind, and lie less on the 
surface — as they do in " The Excursion" — than in the 
subject itself, penetrating to the very bones and marrow 
of the composition. At its commencement the poem 
is as modern in its machinery as a mechanics' institute, 
— rejoicing in steam-models, galvanic batteries, and 
electric telegraphs, and is only wanting in a touch of 
Dr Darling and electro-biology to bring it down to " this 
Modern Athens and this hour." In its progress it be- 
comes first sentimental, then philosophic, then romantic, 
then downright chivalric ; and, towards its conclusion, 
issues in a cramhe recocta of all heterogeneous elements 
— for which it would be difficult to discover a palpable 
simile, except we find it in a Centaur, " half man and 
half horse" — or in a Mermaid, "a lovely lady with a 
fish's tail" — or in a Caliban, or in a "Bottom the 
weaver," with his innocent ass's mouth " watering for 
thistles." In short, " The Princess" is veritably what 
Tennyson has himself termed it, "a medley" — a mixture 
of the prosaic utilitarianism of modern life with the 
euphuistic heroism of ancient sentiment — Jeremy 
Bentham embracing Don Quixote ; of the familiar and 
conventional with the heightened and ideal — "William 
Cobbett " how-d'ye-doing " to Marcus TuUius Cicero. 
Such materials may be brought into juxtaposition, and 
ordered, like George Colman's Newcastle apothecary's 



"in memoriam." 319 

draught — ''when taken, to be well shaken ;" but oil and 
water cannot be made to amalgamate. The same un- 
escapable hodge-podge would have resulted had Shake- 
speare attempted to blend the high-toned metaphysical 
reveries of Hamlet with the blustering bladder-blown 
bravado of Ancient Pistol, and after " To be or not to 
be, that is the question," had added, " I eat this leek in 
token of revenge ! " The general impression left on the 
mind by " The Princess " is therefore, as might have 
been expected, simply the grotesque. 

Tennyson's latest volume, " In Memoriam," although 
far from being an immaculate one, especially in the 
matter of taste, is alike honourable to his genius and 
heart, and far more worthy of his reputation than 
" The Princess." It is a collection of elegiac quatrains 
dedicated to the memory of a dear personal friend — 
Arthur Hallam, a son of the celebrated historian, and 
the affianced of the poet's sister ; and, taking bereave- 
ment for its key-note, wails on through all the JBolian 
harmonies of sorrow. Many of these are replete with 
elemental, truthful beauty ; others are quaint and specu- 
lative ; while not a few deal too largely in the symbols 
of imagination to directly influence the heart. In these 
instances, too, the language is frequently as abstract as 
the recondite and subtle idea which it is meant to 
convey ; and the reader has the utmost difficulty in 
deciphering it. 

The following stanzas are very beautiful : — 

" The path by which we twain did go, 

Which led by tracts that pleased us well, 
Through four sweet years arose and fell, 
From flower to flower, from snow to snow ; 

And we with singing cheered the way, 
And crowned with all the season lent, 
From April on to April went, 

And glad of heart from May to May. 



320 THE EXCELLENCIES OP ELEGIAC POETRY. 

But where the path we walked began 
To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 
As we descended following Hope, 

There sat the Shadow feared of man : 



Who broke our fair companionship, 
And spread his mantle dark and cold ; 
And wrapt thee formless in the fold, 

And dulled the murmur on thy lip ; 

And bore thee where I could not see 
Nor follow, though I walk in haste ; 
And think that, somewhere in the waste. 

The shadow sits and waits for me." 

One of the prominent peculiarities of the " In Memo- 
riam" is, that all the many separate little pieces of 
which the book is composed are written in one unvaried 
measure, and that each, like a sonnet, embodies some 
one leading idea ; and, as embracing both these charac- 
teristics, I know of no antetype, save perhaps the son- 
nets of Petrarch. This pervading thought is in itself 
generally fine ; and the majority of the individual bits 
in this composite are highly polished. We have many 
exquisite descriptive touches, as well as many of those 
salient sentimental sparks which genius can alone 
scintillate. Not a few portions, however, are hazy and 
obscure, alike in thought and expression ; and, having 
the least conceivable connection with the general theme, 
look " like orient pearls merely at random strung." 
What should constitute the soul and essence of elegiac 
poetry 1 Pathos — the unequivocal, the simple, natural 
expression of that sorrow wiiich comes from and goes 
to the heart, and which is, "when unadorned, adorned 
the most ; " and, judged by that standard, how much 
have we in the " In Memoriam ? " Milton, to be sure, 
has his " Lycidas," and Shelley his " Adonais ; " but I 



RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES. 321 

doubt much if the ice-cold metaphysical conceits con- 
tained in either ever drew a tear from an unaeademic 
eye. Not so wrote King David of Saul and Jonathan : 
not so in Rama mourned Rachel for her children, 
" because they were not." The fountain of tears must 
be moved by a spell, not by an analysis of feeling, criti- 
cal, recondite, and labelled with the phases and moods 
of sympathetic emotion. 

Let it not be for one moment supposed that I am not 
deeply alive to the excellencies of Alfred Tennyson as a 
poet, for I regard him as in some points standing at this 
moment at the very head of our poetical literature. But 
he is much more apt to be copied in his errors than his 
excellencies : and what I maintain is, that, although a 
great artist, he is a very unequal one. Possessed of a 
rich and rare genius, he is, in a certain walk, and that 
his own — the imaginative, the quaintly graphic, and the 
picturesque — unquestionably a master. Above all, his 
poetry possesses, in an eminent degree, one of the 
highest attributes — suggestiveness ; and there he will 
even stand the severe test of old Longinus, who enun- 
ciates in his tenth section that "we may pronounce 
that sublime, beautiful, and true, which permanently 
pleases, and which takes generally with all sorts of 
men''' 

The laurel crown of England, "which Dryden and 
diviner Spenser wore," has, by the recent lamented 
decease of the great Poet of the Lakes, been transferred 
to the more youthful brows of Alfred Tennyson. 

" He won it well, and may he wear it long." 

The poetry of Richard Monckton Milnes possesses 
very considerable elegance and taste — a philosophic 
sentiment and a graceful tenderness, but is deficient 
in individuality and power ; although perhaps not so 
much so as might at first seem, for, as in Henry Tay- 
lor's, the grand pervading element is repose — his sunset 

X 



322 DR CHARLES MACKAY. 

has no clouds, and his morning no breezes. From his 
lack of constructiveness and dramatic passion, he appears 
to most advantage in his serious, his sentimental, and 
descriptive sketches, many of which are fine and striking, 
although he often mars the general effect by unnecessary 
analysis. He may be said to have followed more in the 
wake of Wordsworth than of any other preceding poet, 
although his admiration for Keats and Shelley is not 
seldom unappareut. His narrative is wanting in ra- 
pidity and action, and is apt to fall into a pleasing 
monotony and languor, from wliich we are not roused 
by salient points : the current of his thoughts would 
be vivified by more frequent breaks and waterfalls. 
Hence his " Poetry for the People" was a misnomer ; 
for instead of being circumstantial and palpable, it was 
abstract, and beyond the reach of their sympathies. 
About all the productions of Monckton iMilnes there 
is an artist-like finish ; and his ear is finely attuned to 
the melodies of verse. 

With much more of the popular element in his mind, 
and with a greater dash of spirit and animation, Dr 
Charles Mackay stands nearly on the same level with 
Mr Monckton Milnes. His earliest poem, " The Hope 
of the World," was referable to the school of Goldsmith 
and Rogers ; his next, " The Salamandrine," leant to- 
wards Coleridge and Shelley — a circumstance probably 
to be traced to the nature of the subject ; but in the 
" Legends of the Isles" he thinks and writes more inde- 
pendently ; the best of these being " The Death of the 
Sea King" and " St Columba," which vary from the 
simple, unadorned ballad style, to the more ambitious 
one of the lyric ode. In his " Voices from the Crowd,'' 
and his "Voices from the Mountains," there is even yet 
more genuine poetical power, especially in the verses 
headed " The Phantoms of St Sepulchre," and " We are 
wiser than we know." " Street Companions," in the 
" Town Lyrics," is also pregnant with thought, and a 



DRAMATIC POETS. 323 

spirit of poetry fine and impressive. We delight to 
observe the march of progress in an author, and in Dr 
Mackay, as I have just remarked, this is very apparent ; 
for "Egeria," his hist, is by far his best poem, whether 
we regard feHcity of conception, or imaginative and 
artistic power ; many of its passages, viewed in the 
light of didactic verse, being of high and rare merit 
both as to manner and matter. 

In a clever and spirited introduction, Dr Mackay 
takes a view quite opposed to my own in reference to 
the effects of Poetry and Science on each other — nay, 
he even admits general politics as a legitimate auxiliary 
element. But he has said nothing which seems in the 
slightest degree to affect my position ; and I cannot 
help still regarding Poetry the imaginative and limit- 
less, and Science the definite and true, as per se anta- 
gonistic. Equally unsatisfactory is his argument, that 
the development of abstract truths does not circumscribe 
the boundaries of fancy's field ; for poetry has ever 
found " the haunt and the main region of her song," 
either in the grace and beauty, which cannot be analysed, 
or in the sublime of the indefinite. JSewton, with his 
dissection of the "Rainbow;" Anson, with his cir- 
cumnavigation ; and Franklin with his lightning-kite, 
were all disenchanters. Angels no longer alight on the 
Iris ; Milton's " sea-covered sea — sea without shore," is 
a geographical untruth ; and in the thunder, men hear 
no more the voice of the Deity. 

Having throughout these Lectures abstained from 
whatever might be regarded as pure dramatic literature, 
I have altogether passed over many writers distinguished 
for the high poetical excellencies displayed in their com- 
positions — more especially Maturin, Sheridan Knowles, 
Marston, White, 'Home, Samuel Brown, Lovell Beddoes, 
William Smith, Henry Taylor, and Thomas Noon Tal- 
fourd, each well worthy of separate and especial con- 
sideration ; but this should have led me into a field of 



324 ROBERT BROWNING : 

examination utterly incompatible M'ith my present 
necessarily narrow limits. I should have also liked 
to have been able to add some strictures on the brother 
poets of America, more especially Henry Longfellow, 
and William Cullen Bryant, for both of whom I have 
a high admiration — the one being distinguished for the 
possession of the very element in which, our recent 
verse is so deficient — imaginative truth — and the other 
having preserved, in many of his pictures, the native 
aboriginal tone, which must hereafter render them 
invaluable. The merits of our very young rising 
poets — many of them of high promise — I have pur- 
posely abstained from discussing, as it would be mere 
prophecy to assign to them anything like fixed com- 
parative degrees of rank, although I have great delight 
in pointing to the names of Burbidge, Cassels, Clough, 
Westwood, Bennet, Allingham, and Baton. 

Robert Browning, as a poet of promise, was regarded 
by some as equalling Tennyson. In his " Paracelsus," 
from out a cloudy tabernacle were darted tongues of 
flame ; but the smoke has never cleared away. In 
it we had much of mysticism, affectation, obscurity, 
nay, utter incomprehensibility, mixed up with many 
fine aspirations, and a variety of magnificent outlines, 
although no separate scene could be said to satisfy. We 
had abundance of bold rough draughts, some in the 
manner of Turner, and others in the manner of Martin, 
all "dark with excessive bright ;" but no single picture 
filled up and coloured. " Sordello," which followed it, 
was the strangest vagary ever submitted to the world in 
the shape of verse, and as incomprehensibly m3'sterious 
as the riddles of the Sphinx. Some recondite meaning 
the book probably may have ; but I am not aware 
that any one has ever been able to discover it, although 
I think Mr Home, the author of " Orion," once made 
a guess. At all events its intelligibility does not shine 
on the surface, nor in any twenty consecutive lines. 



HIS DEFICIENCY IN POETIC ART. 325 

In the "Bells and Pomegranates," we have now and 
then glimpses of poetic sentiment and description, like 
momentary sunbeams darting out between rifted clouds ; 
but straightway the clouds close, and we are left to 
plod on in deeper twilight. The truth is, that with 
an ill-regulated imagination, Mr Browning has utterly 
mistaken singularity for originality — the uncommon 
for the fine. Style and manner he despises ; indeed, 
he may be said to have none — for these are with him 
like the wind blowing where it listeth ; or, as extremes 
meet, he may be said to have all kinds, from the most 
composite and arabesque to the most disjointed and 
Doric. Even in his serious and earnest themes, he 
thinks nothing of leaping at once from the Miltonic to 
the Hudibrastic ; and to poetry as an art, such as it 
was in the hands of Pope and Collins, of Gray and 
Goldsmith, of Coleridge and Campbell, he seems to 
have utterly blinded himself, assuming for his motto 
the boastful lines of old Withers : — 

" Pedants shall not tie my strains 
To our antique poets' veins ; 
Being born as free to these, 
I shall sing as 1 shall please." 

Browning never seems to lack materials ; but, huddled 
together as we find them, they may be denominated 
cairns — not buildings. The creations of his pen have 
therefore the snme relation to external nature, and the 
goings-on of actual life, that day-dreams have to reali- 
ties, or apparitional castles and cataracts in the clouds 
to their earthly counterparts. Genius of some kind — it 
may be of a high kind — Browning must have ; but, 
most assuredly, never was genius of any kind or degree 
more perversely misapplied. A small band of transcen- 
dental worshippers may follow him, as they do Emer- 
son ; but even these will, I fear, be forced to content 
themselves with the idea, that surely there must be 



326 JOHN STERLING. 

some thread which might enable them to grope their 
way through the more than Cretan intricacies of his 
mystical labyrinth, — if they could only catch hold of it. 

It is but too evident that German quasi-philosophy — 
the physics of Oken, and the metaphysics of Kant, 
Schelling, and Hegel, have been doing for much of ihe 
poetry of the last twenty years what French propa- 
gandism did for it at the beginning of the century, 
when a band of our young bards were pantisocratists. 
But the delusive colours, Avhich " played in the plighted 
clouds," died away before the light of their maturer 
intellects. Among these '■^ Fata Morgana,'" these base- 
less fabrics of vision, poor Shelley utterly, and Coleridge 
for a season, bewildered himself ; but the latter happily 
returned to his better mind, to common-sense, and to 
Christianity. 

John Sterling had some high qualities of mind, but 
he was utterly destitute of the self-reliance necessary to 
constitute a great poet. The finest of all his produc- 
tions, as a mere poem, is " The Sexton's Daughter," a 
striking lyrical ballad produced in early youth, ere he 
sank into poetic misgivings. His mind seemed perpe- 
tually passing through new phases, and resting in none. 
His energy commands our respect, but not more often 
than its misapplication does our censure or our regret. 
His anxieties were almost uniformly profitless or mis- 
applied. 

As a poet and dramatist, Sterling possessed taste, in- 
genuity, and a kind of rhetorical inspiration ; but much 
greater things were expected from him than he ever had 
the capability to accomplish. Unsettled in all his plans 
and projects, as well as in his views and feelings, he 
laboriously frittered away his years, if not in profitless 
exertion, at least in a way that rendered their results 
nearly ineffective for good or evil. With considerable 
power, his mind was, likely Shelley's, fragmentary and 
incomplete ; and like him he was also at once acute, 



PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. 327 

yet obscure— bold, yet uncertain. He had much of the 
same metaphysical subtlety, but was far behind him in 
imagination. In connection with this subject, Mr Gil- 
fillan eloquent!}^ says: "Sterling, in his wide and 
trembling sympathies with literary excellence, and in 
his devoted enthusiasm for the varied expressions of 
the beautiful, as well as in the hectic heat and eagerness 
of his temperament, bore a strong likeness to Shelley, 
although possessing a healthier, happier, and better 
balanced nature." Alas! even for such health, such 
happiness, and such intellectual equipoise, Avhich at 
best can only be compared to Campbell's picture of the 
Peruvian bridge : — 

" A wild cane arch, high flung o'er gulf profound, 
That fluctuates when the storms of El Dorado sound." 

Of Philip James Bailey, the author of "Festus, and 
"The Angel World," it is still more difficult to speak ; 
although, as a poet of actual achievement, I can have no 
hesitation in placing him far above either Browning or 
Sterling. His " Festus" is, in many respects, a very 
remarkable production — remarkable alike for its poetic 
power and its utter neglect of all the requirements 
of poetic art. It is such a wilderness of weeds and 
flowers, its blemishes and its beauties are so inextri- 
cably interwoven, its combinations of imagery are so 
perplexed, and its conceptions often so indefinite or 
abortive, that we can only liken it here to " Chaos come 
again," and there to Vesuvius during an eruption — 
bright flames, black smoke, and lava torrents. The 
germinal idea no doubt originated in Goethe's "Faust," 
but the poem of the great German is not less distin- 
guished for its high art as a composition, than for its 
daring speculative philosophy. "Festus" has no claim 
to the former attribute, for in point of style it is fre- 
quently utterly loose and disjointed ; while in the latter 
it out-Herods Herod, and runs riot among all kinds of 



328 " FESTUS." 

metaphysical exaggerations and absurdities. Its sole 
redemption lies in the vivid tongues of flame — the 
lightnings of undoubted genius ever and anon bursting 
from its dark masses of encompassing smoke — in the 
grains of gold sparkling amid its lumps of soiling clay. 
On its metaph3'sics I do not mean to enter, as they 
seem a strange compound of Christian doctrine and 
Hegelian transcendentalism ; and all its oracles are 
enunciated from a cloudy tabernacle. Yet, with all 
these excesses and defects, we are made to feel that 
"Festus" is the v/ork of a poet. We cannot be deaf 
to the utterances of a bold and fervent spirit ; for these 
speak to us aliTvO in his half-prosaic colloquialisms, and 
in his imaginative soarings. 

The great text which he labours to expound, if I can 
quite make it out, is the ultimate subordination of evil 
to good, and the infinite love of Heaven to all created 
things ; but from the main current of the theme a 
thousand erratic rivulets diverge, running no one knows 
whither. 

In "The Angel World," we liave the youthful poet 
more sobered down ; and the consequent result has 
been one not exactly to be wished — its beauties and 
its defects are each alike less prominent. In disciplin- 
ing his imagination, it has lost much of its force and 
lustre : and his style, if more subdued and symmetrical, 
has become more artificial, and has ceased to throw out 
those wildflowers which hung about it like a natural 
garland. The scope and tendency of the poem I pre- 
tend not to decipher. It is of a symbolic character, and 
seems to involve many mysteries, which a few may de- 
light to pry into ; but its merit Avill be found to consist 
entirely in its descriptive passages, and its typification 
of abstract conceptions by ideal forms — one angel being 
apparently intended for Faith, another Humility, and 
a third Human Nature. Alike in this poem and its 
predecessor, Bailey seems to advocate the doctrine of 



"a vision of decay." 329 

ultimate universal salvation, as also the law of universal 
necessity. I do not know that I can find any passage 
more impressed with the mingled grandeur and gro- 
tesqueness of his manner than the following : it is 
part of the dream that Elissa relates to her lover 
Lucifer : — 

" Methougbt that I was happy, because dead. 
All hurried to and fro, and many cried 
To each other — ' Can I do thee any good V 
But no one heeded ; nothing could avail : 
The world was one great grave. I looked and saw 
Time on his two great wings — one night — one day — 
Fly moth-like right into the flickering sun, 
So that the sun went out, and they both perished. 
And one gat up and spoke — a holy man — 
Exhorting them ; but each and all cried out — 
' Go to — it helps not — means not : we are dead.' 

' Bring out your hearts before me. Give your limbs 

To whom ye list or love. My son Decay 

Will take them : give them him. I want your hearts, 

That I may take them up to God. ' There came 

These words amongst us, but we knew not whence. 

It was as if the air spake. And there rose 

Out of the earth a giant thing, all earth — 

His eye was earthy, and his arm was earthy; 

He had no heart. He but said, * I am Decay ; ' 

And as he spake he crumbled into earth. 

And there was nothing of him. But we all 

Lifted our faces up at the word God, 

And spied a dark star high above in the midst 

Of others, mimberless as are the dead, 

And all plucked out their hearts, and held them in 

Their right hands. Many tried to pick out specks 

And stains, but could not ; each gave up his heart. 

And something — all things — nothing — it was Death, 

Said, as before, from air — ' Let us to God ! ' 

And straight we rose, leaving behind the raw 

Worms and dead gods ; all of us — soared and soared 



330 POETRY, AND ITS UTTERANCES. 

Right upwards, till the star I told thee of 

Looked like a moon — the moou became a sun ; 

The sun — there came a hand between the sun and us, 

And its five fingers made five nights in air. 

God tore the glory from the sun's broad brow, 

And flung the flaming scalp off flat to Hell : 

I saw him do it ; and it passed close by us." 

Here we have the wild extravagance and the magnifi- 
ceut imagination blent. We do not know whether more 
to admire or shudder ; yet we acknowledge the vital 
presence and power which makes the vision terrible, 
even after Clarence's dream. 

Passing at a tangent from the tame, the artificial, the 
conventional school of Hayley, and the hyperbolical 
extra-mundane one of Lewis, I am willing to admit 
that the poetry of Joanna Baillie and William Words- 
worth may have rested too exclusively on mere simpli- 
city or naturalness of sentiment and emotion ; that 
Scott, on the other hand, may have too unreservedly 
hinged on action and description ; and that the Italian- 
isms of Hunt, Keats, and Cornwall, no doubt occasion- 
ally merged into affectation. But it Avas scarcely to be 
expected, even ere Campbell had passed away from 
among us, — and who had given us such admirable 
illustrations of the classical and romantic combined — 
that he was to see the rise, and shudder over the pro- 
gress of a school — as 1 know he did — which was to 
rejoice in poetical conception without poetical execution 
— which was to substitute the mere accumulation of the 
raw materials for the triumph of art in their arrange- 
ment ; — in short, to displace the Parthenon by a Stone- 
henge. Such, however, has been the case, and such the 
course of events, to whatever cause the anomaly is to 
be traced, — whether to the wearing out, or case-harden- 
ing of the soil by the great masters, who have illumi- 
nated our age ; or to the main current of the national 
mind having been diverted into quite another channel 



THE QUACKERY OF MYSTICISM. 331 

— that of physical science — leaviog poetry to harp to 
the winds or to an audience sparse and select. 

It would almost seem that there is some shadow of 
truth in this latter hypothesis ; but instead of poetry 
having adapted itself to this sobered tone of public feel- 
ing, and having become more matter-of-fact, more 
repressed in its enthusiasm, and more graceful in its 
expositions of philosophical tliought, more genuinely 
passionate, and more in accordance with what all know 
and feel to be true and tender, or beautiful or sublime, 
it has rebelliously kicked up its heels in derision — cry- 
ing, " A fico for general sympathy and common sense. 
The man in the moon for ever ! " Thus sowing, it 
must reap. 

Simple utterance of feeling — with a mystical com- 
mentary on such utterance — is all that the purest 
disciples of this newest of our schools aspire to. Eine 
images, allegorical symbols — hieroglyphic meanings — 
speculative thought, we have in superfluity, but no 
apparent aim, and seldom any attempt at composition. 
Tares and wheat ar.e allowed to grow up together to 
one un weeded harvest, and often the bugloss and the 
poppy, scattered plentifully throughout the field, look 
very like flowers in their respective blue and scarlet 
jackets. But who would term this either agriculture or 
gardening? Even this utterance of thought seems to 
be designedly left vague and imperfect, to help out the 
adage omne ignotum pro magnifico ; and although some, 
nay, occasionally a superabundance, of the materials for 
poetry, may be observed floating about, it is of as uncer- 
tain destination as the drift-wood on an autumn-flood. 
Mysticism in law is quibbling ; mysticism in religion 
is the jugglery of priestcraft ; mysticism in medicine is 
quackery — and these often serve their crooked purposes 
well. But mysticism in poetry can have no attainable 
triumph. The sole purpose of poetry is to delight and 
instruct, and no one can be either pleased or profited by 



332 OBSCURITY a:n^d exaggeration. 

what is unintelligible. It ayouM be as just to call 
stones and mortar, slates and timber, a mansion, or to 
call colours and canvass a picture, as to call mystical 
effervescences poetry. Poems are poetical materials 
artistically elaborated ; and if so, the productions of 
this school, from Emerson to Browning, cannot be 
allowed to rank higher than rhapsodical effusions. It 
is necessary for a poet to think, to feel, and to fancy ; 
but it is also necessary for him to assimilate and com- 
bine — processes which the pupils of this transcendental 
academy seem indeed to wish understood either that 
they totally overlook, or affect to undervalue as worth- 
less. Results — products — conclusions — not ratiocina- 
tions, are expected from the poet. "His heart leaps up 
when he beholds a rainbow in the sky ;" but the laws 
of refraction producing this emotion he leaves to be 
dealt with as a fit subject for science. It is the province 
of the poet to describe the western sunset sky "dying 
like a dolphin" in its changeful hues, not the optical 
why and wherefore of twilight. In short, his business 
is with enunciations, not with syllogisms. The poet 
springs to conclusions not by the logic of science, but 
by intuition ; and whosoever, as a poet, acts either the 
chemist, the naturalist, or the metaphysician, mistakes 
the object of his specific mission. Philosophy and 
poetry may, in most things, not be incompatible ; but 
they are essentially distinct. Metaphysical analyses 
cannot be accepted as substitutes either for apostrophes 
to the beautiful, or for utterances of passion. I hold 
them to be as different from these as principles are 
from products, or as causes from effects. 

I have only two or three ^'ords more to add to this, 
regarding another set of new poetical aspirants, who 
will not look upon nature with their own unassisted 
eyes, but are constantly interposing some favourite 
medium — probably a distorting medium. They see 
motes between them and the sun, have a horror of foul 



THE BANES OF OUR RECENT POETRY. 333 

air, and filter the living crystal of the fountain in their 
repugnance to animalciilse — which they are yet restless 
until they discover. When they sneeze, instead of 
blessing themselves, according to ancient and innocent 
custom, they search out a physiological reason ; and 
when they encounter a child crying, they have no 
sympathetic desire to pat it on the head, but would 
fain analyse its tears. They are either making mon- 
strous growths out of the green grass on the lap of 
mother earth, or making new stars from the nebulous 
fire-mist in the blue abysses of space above their heads. 
They turn from the obvious and unmistakable, and 
are off like "wild huntsmen" of imagination, in search 
of spectral essences ; for they flatter themselves with 
the belief that their reveries are realities ; and dream- 
ing that whatever is not, is ; and that whatever is, is 
not, their "series of melting views" is christened trans- 
cendental philosophy : poetry thus resolving itself 
into a negation of judgment — into a mere " fancy i?? 
nubibus," an entire absorption of intellect in imagina- 
tion — sunshine playing on morning mists — soon to 
dislimn in nothingness. 

Bailey and Sterling stand, wdth relation to Tennyson 
and Mrs Browning, very much as Shelley did with 
Keats. Tlieir ambition was to sail " with ample pinion," 
not only " through the azure fields of air, " but also 
through all the mists and clouds that came in their 
way, instead of dealing with the ways and works of 
men, with the passions and associations of humanity. 
It is thus that their aspirations, although lofty, are ever 
indefinite ; that their reasonings seem always in a circle, 
and with no apparent goal. They would fain " dally 
with the sun, and scorn the breeze ; " but they get be- 
wildered, and are drifted away amid the Himmalayas 
of cloudland. One grand object of the school to which 
they belong seems to be — if it indeed have any one dis- 
tinct and leading principle — to regard the species and 



334 THE BANES OF OUR RECENT POETRY. 

not the individual ; to generalise, and not to particu- 
larise ; to sink the national even in the cosmopolitan : a 
vision likely to be realised only when man has thrown 
off all the sloughs of his present nature. Add to this, 
that, as disciples of Fichte and Schelling, they attribute 
to the human mind powers that far overpass the boun- 
daries of mere sensation. But where is this to end ? — 
when we remember that, proceeding in the same vague 
tract, by no means a new one, Schiller succeeded in 
convincing Goethe that his view of the morphology of 
plants was the result, not of observation, but of an idea ; 
and that Oken broached a theory, which I believe Pro- 
fessor Owen is not disinclined to adopt, that the classes 
of animated nature are mere representations of the 
organs of the senses. That the latter-day poets have 
high aims and objects, however indefinite and difficult 
to be deciphered these may appear to the uninitiated, I 
never doubted. These seem principally to be a desire 
to exhibit the influence of physical nature on the ope- 
rations of the fancy and intellect ; and we have, in 
consequence, simply their gropings amid the arcana of 
mind, in search of those hidden links of mystery which 
connect the seen to the unseen. But this, as the general 
subjective material, can scarcely be termed poetry ; or, 
if so, why stop short of versifying Ja^^ob Behmen ? In 
Shakespeare, in Milton, in Akenside, in Wordsworth, in 
Byron, and in Coleridge, we have, it is true, grand casual 
aspirations after ideal good, and man's perfectibility, 
and the knowledge of his whence and wherefore ; but, 
to make such the main staple of poetry is a vain 
attempt at constructing what would be all spirit and 
no body — a mere twisting of the sea-sand into ropes — 
for even ghosts should be invisible without the sem 
blance of a corporeal from ; and yet these things are 
selected to form everlasting themes of profitless specula- 
tion, to the exclusion of all pictorial effect, and all 
exercise of the practical understanding. 



POETRY INEXTINGUISHABLE. 335 

But although poetry is at present prostrated, it must 
revive — because it ever has been, and ever must be, a 
necessary aliment of our human nature. It is evident 
that literature, from an agglomeration of many concur- 
rent causes, seems destined to accomplish certain specific 
cycles. We know what occurred on the extinction of 
the Homeric Chaucer — what followed the passing away 
of Shakespeare and Milton — how the brilliances of Dry- 
den and Pope waned dim in their disciples. Could it 
be otherwise in our own age, after the setting of such 
luminaries as "Walter Scott, Lord Byron, and "William 
"Wordsworth 1 But the Occleves and Lyddgates of the 
first era, the Donnes and Henry Mores of the second, 
and the Mallets and Tickells of the third, had each their 
glimmering hour. A brighter poetic day must anon 
come, Avith its healthy exhilarating sunshine ; and 
poetry shall again awake in renovation, to exhibit a 
child-like nature united with a giant's power — the 
majestic imagination wedded to the masculine intellect. 



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